Tea in Singapore
Singapore’s swanky tea shops
SINGAPORE
The old, drab, regimented, and fun-resistant Singapore has been transformed over the past decade. It now has a casino, is a movie production center, offers superb dining, is home to a flashy light show garden display, a superb night safari zoo, and its famous multicultural and expat mix. It hosts major sporting events.
It’s also becoming one of the most glamorous and varied tea markets. Here are some standouts that make for a wide range of choices in this city-state that is a hub in just about every area of trade – and now a gateway to the world of teas:
TWG: Singapore-founded (2008), noted for its inventory of 800 single-estate teas. This is one of the fastest-rising recent entrants in the high-end and luxury markets. It offers superb teas, accessories, patisseries, and cuisine. All these are as upscale as any in the market. It has expanded into close to 20 countries.
Pin Tea, Gryphon, 1872 Clipper Tea, Tealy, Collaboration Tea: Singapore blenders and sellers of teas localized for the Singapore markets and offering unique flavors and variants of teas from China, India and other major producers. One example is nasi lemak, an aromatic mix of houjicha and genmaicha from Japan, coconut flakes and dried local pandan and chili. Taste of Singapore combines Ceylon black tea and ginger, mango, pineapple, soursop, and passionfruit. Cabernet tea is puer plus cinnamon, vanilla beans, raisins, cloves, and safflower petals.
Teapasar: A unique service to reduce tea fraud and adulteration. It offers a fast comparison of a stocks of tea in vendor inventory with profiles of hundreds of authenticated teas. These profiles use DNA fingerprinting and AI machine learning and record the unique taste factors of a tea: sweetness, aftertaste, richness, bitterness, etc.
Singapore has mainly been a coffee consuming culture. Now it is not just a fine tea market but – to add a word not associated with this pragmatic, work-dominated and well-ordered society – a center for exotic teas. Singapore exotic? Yes, and for the tea lover special and exciting.