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Blending: from Craftsmanship to Artistic Creation

The quality of the tea relies on the climate, the soil and most important of all, the Master's intelligence and handicraft to bring out the tea’s best flavor. Master Gao had gained a superior craftsmanship while working in the tea factory starting from apprentice to tea craftsman. Tea-blending is an exquisite handicraft that could be compared to Whiskey-blending. The tea craftsman has to mix a certain proportion of tea breeds from different regions in order to make a unique tea product. A tea craftsman is like a perfumer, a music composer, there’s no certain formula to create the best perfume or music, all you can rely on is your own experience. By strengthen the good and enhance the weak in different tea breeds, the tea craftsman refines tea's quality and taste.

Nowadays Master Gao id already 80 years old but still has great skills."Tea-blending ought to be a team work" he says. By combining the experience of two generations’ tea craftsmen, Mingsan in known for its’ great quality and strong customer confidence. . The fourth generation of Mingsan’s tea craftsman has made a decision to create a new blending skill, which is letting each customer create their own tea recipes according to their own preferences.

A70 year-old lady name Grandma Shi shops in Mingsan very often always buy at least ten to fifteen kg of tea every time she comes. As a leader of the badminton team, her habit is to share tea with her teammates after each practice. She was also assigned to be responsible for buying tea. Hence, she tried a variety of tea, from Jinxuan, Tsueiyu to Oolong. If she likes the aroma of one, but preferred the taste of another Master Gao will teach her how to blend her very own tea: starting with mixing the tea liquid of different breeds, and then blend it with tea leaves. Finally, the badminton team also has their own special recipe of tea. Their tea tastes light and fragrant in summer and changes from time to time due to the natural phenomenon of changing season. In addition, Grandma Shi's tea satisfies the teammates' different preferences; her tea is good for the individual as well as for a group of people.

In 2012, Mingsan Tea Shop launched a new branding strategy. It aims to convey to the public a philosophy of “blending”. You can learn more and more about tea while blending it in your own preferable way., Nothing has changed in this traditional tea shop except the little boy has now grown into a tea expert. He is performing extraordinary in his modern way.

Besides customized blended-tea for enterprises and individuals, Mingsan Tea Shop offers unique blended tea for every customer as well. No matter tea bags or original tea leaves, everyone can enjoy the flavored tea while drinking their tea. In fact, Mingsan's modern tea philosophy simplified the tea drinking steps, thus, ordinary people can easily taste the fine-quality tea as well.

Expert makes great tea even better

There used to be an old grandpa who visited the shop each month to buy jasmine green tea. He hasd been a frequent client for more than ten years, and through timeduring these years, he had become familiar withand Mmaster Gao has become great friends. During the time, his mobility and hearing had gradually declined. Despite speaking different dialects, old grandpa still chats with Master Gao every time he comes to the shop. Both of them can hardly even understand each other due to the loss of hearing. One day, old grandpa has stopped visiting. until a couple came to buy jasmine green tea in a cold winter time. The wife said her father always comes here to buy tea and sent it to her and her German husband. Though her father has passed away at 90years old, she is able to remember him through the fragrance of the jasmine tea. She was a music teacher, and describes the tea it dances in the cup. For her, the tea represents true love and warmth. It’s sad but heart-warming as well.

Anytime in the day is a good time for drinking tea. Whether you'd like to drink it in the morning, after a meal, enjoying a pleasant afternoon tea time, or even having tea with close friends at night, any time is suitable.. In the sixteenth-century, a Japanese tea monk Sen no Rikyu said, "Teaism is a nothing but boiling water, brewing tea, and taste it." With good tea, we wouldn’t need to worry about the tea ware nor the tea ceremony. Just add boiled water into good tea leaves, we can all be tea experts.