Maliandao Tea Culture Festival:

Sri Lanka Tea stands out

The Beijing Maliandao International Tea Culture Festival kicked off with an opening ceremony at Beijing's Flyover Theater on April 24.

The festival featured tea exhibitions from across the mainland, as well as from Taiwan and other renowned tea regions around the world including Sri Lanka. Imperial and Eswaran tea participated at the Sri Lanka Tea Promotion party, which was a main feature of the festival where Ambassador and Commercial counsellor were invited as special guests at this impressive event. Anura Banda the Imperial Tea agent in Sri Lanka who operates a Sri Lanka Tea Centre in this prominent Tea street made a Tea presentation at the Sri Lanka Tea Party .

Maliandao street in Beijing is the biggest tea market in North China. This 1500m street has more than 1000 of tea shops, from all over the China. More than 3000 kinds of tea leaves are available on market. The price of tea leaves is 20 - 40 percent cheaper than from other places in the city. One can not only buy tea leaves but also one can find a plethora of teapots and tea sets on sale. The Deputy mayor who was present at the Sri Lanka Tea Presentation Party said that Sri Lanka and China should work together to expand the world Tea Market.

Key features

There are many key features that make Maliandao stand out from other tea markets. The Maliandao tea market developed suddenly and there is a special tea culture that has developed around the street. Tea stores are decorated in both modern and antique styles, and in most places customers can taste the tea first and bargain the price with the owner. There are also tea sets, curios, calligraphy and paintings in many tea stores for customers to see and appreciate.

Further in this street there is a combination of culture and travel. In order to welcome the 2008 Olympic Games the tea street tried to attract tourists by branding itself as a tea mecca.

A statue of the Tea Sage Lu Yu and his Book of Tea has been erected in the middle of the street, which was unveiled during the first Tea Culture Festival. People now compare Maliandao Tea Street to the Ancient Tea Horse Road , which linked China to other nations through the tea trade for thousands of years. Maliandao carries on this spirit. In addition this street was recently been honoured by the government as The Commercial Street with Chinese Characteristics, the only street that has won the honour in Beijing.

Now, commercial facilities covering more than 100,000 sq m have been built along the street. The development of the tea industry made for tremendous growth in spin-off industries such as tea sets, tea packaging, transportation, tea ceremony, root carving, tea foods and even tea footbaths in this area.

Another attraction

Maliandao Purchasing Centre is another attraction in this street. Currently the government of Xuanwu District is planning to construct a purchasing center in Maliandao that will cover 82 hectares. It will be divided into five areas including an international purchasing and exhibition area, tea industry purchasing area, brand commercial area, healthcare area and a books and education area. This will help Maliandao to further develop as an important logistics hinge for Beijing.

Since China has the fastest growing, largest middle class in the world, the demand for imported products and new items is amazingly huge. Therefore, the trend for the Chinese consumers, particularly the younger generation to favour Ceylon Black Tea which is a new product to them in the not too distant future, appears bright.

Sri Lankan tea is performing exceptionally well in the Chinese market and has achieved a remarkable growth during the past two years surpassing 1 million kg for the first time in 2008 that recorded 1.2 million kg said Sri Lankan Ambassador Karunatilaka Amunugama while participating at the Sri Lanka Tea Promotion Party at the festival.

Ambassador further said that black Tea does not compete with different type of Chinese Tea and we concentrate in high end customers in China which has the fastest growing, largest middle class in the world happening together with the extraordinary economic growth.

Ambassador Amunugama said that Sri Lanka Tea Commonly known as red tea (hong cha), has great potential to secure a bigger share in the China's huge RMB 80 billion tea market for its fine quality.

He further said that with innovative marketing strategies adopted by Sri Lanka with the constant support of Sri Lanka Tea Board and the Embassy in China. Sri Lanka Tea is slowly but steadily building a reputation in China as exporter of the world's finest black teas, Ambassador said.