Eric Favre shows the use of the Tpresso to a Chinese volunteer taster at a ceremony promoting the machine in Beijing on Jan 12. [Photo / China Daily]
BEIJING - If you thought the humble teabag was about as convenient as it gets for making tea, think again.
Those pressed for time, and with deep pockets, can now avail themselves of the Tpresso, making tea system using capsules like Nestle's commercially successful Nespresso coffee machine, for the princely sum of 5,000 yuan ($758).
"We are not coming to challenge China's long history of tea culture, we are coming to diversify it," said Eric Favre, chief executive officer and founder of the Swiss Tpresso company, who invented both capsule-based drinks for coffee and tea.
The Tpresso was released in China this month ahead of the European market in the belief China is ready for this particular technological breakthrough.
Favre say his machine can deliver all quality tea fragrances from shredded, compressed leaves after just 50 seconds of brewing. Traditional wisdom has it that only the second and third cup from a normal brew is thought to be tasty.
"Our target clients are rich Chinese people, women who care more about the quality of their lives and young people who like cool stuff," said Favre. To give it further appeal, the company invited wine bottle designer Jacques Pascot to create the crystal teapot and cups that come with the machine.
The capsules will be sold for between 10 and 20 yuan and each one will yield three small cups of tea.
"We selected top grade teas from the best plantations in China and send them to our factory in Switzerland to be cut into small, thin pieces before sealing them in the capsules and returning them to China," said Wu Jianmin, chairman of Zhejiang Jiasheng Tea Garden and Tpresso's partner in China. "This method extends the life of the tea to 10 years, protecting it from oxygen and humidity which cause deterioration."
What distinguishes the Tpresso from the Nespresso is that it can brew eight varieties of tea, including green and oolong. Traditionally, different teas require different brewing times and temperatures. "Tpresso has seven main settings rather against the Nespresso's three. That's why it costs more than the Nespresso," said Favre.
In China, Nespresso are currently sold in Beijing's Shin Kong Place and Chengdu's Isetan shopping center. They cost from 2,800 to 8,000 yuan.
The Tpresso company said it was still in the early stages of looking for dealers in China and would also sell in big shopping centers. Notwithstanding that, the company has a long-term goal of gaining a market share of all tea sold in China of 20 to 30 percent within 20 to 30 years.
"We invested 30 million euros ($40.36 million) on this machine's research and development. We are not going to sell it to a big company such as Lipton because small producers are better at guaranteeing perfect quality," said Favre, who got his patent for the Nespresso to the Nestle company in 1985. That machine took 20 years to grab a market share in Europe of more than 20 percent. "We see the Tpresso in China succeeding much more quickly," Favre said.
"If sales are good we will consider setting up a factory in China to cut costs."
Ren Xuesong, Tpresso's China sales manager, also said the potential market for the new tea-making system could be huge based on the findings of a survey the company commissioned that showed 55.9 percent of Chinese people drink tea less than three times a month.
Zhu Jinwu, general manager of Beijing Jianchashuiji Tea House, who is also an expert tea taster, praised the machine-made tea during a promotional ceremony for the Tpresso. He said it made tea as good as a professional tea master could.
According to data from the Hurun Rich List 2010, China's richest people like drinking tea. The only difference is the most prosperous in first tier cities like longjing (dragon well) tea while in second and third tier cities, they prefer tieguanyin tea.
