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Nipun Wisnagalage
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Sakura Milk Tea Reaches Japanese Palate

Even though traditional Japanese tea culture is so strong, Japan has become the world’s largest RTD tea market by dragging USA in to the second place. By the mean time, Lipton has launched it’s latest Sakura Milk Tea product to refresh Japanese consumer from this spring on wards.

Image Downloaded from: https://sglifestyle.sg/

The product will be available all over Japan except Okinawa. This latest product tastes like the original Lipton Milk Tea with a refreshing touch of cherry blossoms. The price is 135 yen (Roughly USD 1.22) per tetra pack.

Apart from the special flavor and taste, it also features a festive package. The carton is dominated by a pale pink color and delicate cherry blossoms surround the Lipton logo. It certainly has Instagram potential !

I am quite certain that most of “Tea With Nipun” viewers are not fans of RTD sugary teas like these. But this is a one side of the industry which tea lovers should be aware of.

View More Tea News + Articles: http://www.teawithnipun.com/

References

1.Original Post: https://japantoday.com/category/features/new-products/lipton-to-release-sakura-milk-tea-for-cherry-blossom-season

2.Picture Source: https://mothership.sg/2019/02/sakura-milk-tea-lipton/

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Nipun Wisnagalage
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Chinese Cough Syrup Adds Value to Tea in California

No one would imagine that a medicine will be an additive to tea beverage in a commercial outlet. A milk tea store in California, USA is providing consumers something to cough about with their new flavor that utilizes a traditional Chinese remedy. Laboratory in the Los Angeles County city of San Gabriel has concocted a beverage called Cough Syrup Green Tea that incorporates King To Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa (京都念慈菴川貝枇杷膏), a popular herbal medicine in the Far East used to relief sore throat and coughs.

The beverage is part of the store’s holiday menu and underlines their aim to “blend premium traditional ingredients and modern twists on ingredients new and old,” Laboratory wrote on Facebook.

Also known as Pi Pa Gao in Chinese, the medicine is based on a Qing Dynasty recipe created by an official to cure his mother of her cough. It combines 15 herbs such as fritillaria bulb, loquat leaf, licorice root, citrus peel, mushroom, peppermint, and roots in a honey syrup for a taste that is minty, herbal, and sweet.

Pei Pa Koa is now manufactured by Nin Jiom Medicine Manufacturer, which was initiated in 1946 and currently based in Hong Kong. The name Ni Jiom means “memory of mother” and the logo pays tribute to the act of filial piety that inspired the cure’s creation.

Laboratory isn’t the first to use Pei Pa Koa in food. Chef Jeremy Leung, formerly of Whampoa Club restaurant in Shanghai, once served a steamed pear dessert with Pei Pa Koa and almond cream. In Singapore, a bartender has created a dark rum and Pei Pa Koa cocktail and a bubble tea shop has a milk tea with the cough syrup and grass jelly.

Whether herbal medicine in tea will catch on in China as much as cheese did remains to be seen.

References

1.Original Post: https://shanghai.ist/2018/12/24/pei-pa-koa-tea/

2.More Info: https://mothership.sg/2018/12/pi-pa-gao-nin-jiom-bubble-tea/

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Nipun Wisnagalage
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Can Robots Match The Human Skill of Hong Kong Style Milk Tea Preparation ?

Hong Kong style milk tea is very popular in Hong Kong and southern parts of China. Preparation of a perfect Hong Kong milk tea cuppa needs a great deal of skill and concentration. But can a robot really match the human skill ? Many workers worry that robots and artificial intelligence will rob them of their jobs. That’s not the case in Hong Kong’s food and beverage industry, though, where KamChAI and others like it could help fill vacancies that humans show little interest in.

Built by the Association of Coffee and Tea together with the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC), KamChAI – Cantonese for “golden boy” – is Hong Kong’s first AI tea maker, and has been programmed to brew a drink developed by cha chaan teng, or tea cafes. It was unveiled at the 2018 Hong Kong Food Expo this month.

Milk tea is a favourite Hong Kong drink and was included on a list of the city’s intangible cultural heritage in 2014. It originated with local adaptations of the British tea style that experimented with different blends of black tea strained through a cloth resembling a silk stocking. It also used evaporated condensed milk importing from nations like Malaysia rather than fresh milk. A cup of Hong Kong style milk tea contains about 6-10g of small leaf black tea imported from Sri Lanka (Ceylon), India (Assam) etc, 10g of sugar and about 55g of condensed milk.

“KamChAI can standardise the quality of milk tea and make it easier for the workers in restaurants,” says Karen Wong Ka-wei, vice-president of the Association of Coffee and Tea.

The association has been running the Kam Cha competition for the past 10 years to promote Hong Kong-style milk tea.

KamChAI’s makers consulted tea masters and cha chaan teng workers to gather data on the brewing motions, ingredient measurements and other information to ensure the 300kg robot can make a cuppa just as good as humans can. But Ip doubts a robot can ever be a match for a human tea maker.

“To make a good cup of milk tea, you need to put your heart into it,” he says.

Still, Ip concedes that, while the drink brewed by KamChAI isn’t on the same level as that of humans yet, the project ensures the cha chaan teng method of making a good cup of milk tea will never be lost.

The tea cafes that popularised Hong Kong-style milk tea are facing labour shortages. The low pay and long hours associated with working in the local hospitality industry are not young Hongkongers’ cup of tea these days. Making the problem worse are rising rents and Hong Kong’s low unemployment rate of 2.8 per cent.

In a 2016 letter submitted to the Legislative Council, the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades estimated there were 280,000 workers in the restaurant industry, with some 30,000 vacancies that needed filling.

It will be a while before KamChAI can be put into wide usage and replace human tea masters. Halfway through the demonstration, the robot had a glitch and stopped. Ip continued brewing and finished well ahead of his robot competitor.

When technicians got KamChAI going again, it made eight cups of tea before pouring too much into the last cup, spilling tea on the worktop.

“KamChAI is a little bit messy, but it is like watching a child learn,” says Edmond Lai Shiao-bun, director of business development at the Hong Kong Productivity Council. There are plans to build an improved version of KamChAI.

Original Article + Video: https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/2162124/could-robots-save-hong-kong-milk-tea-extinction-kamchai