Tea auction drama brewing in Hong Kong
Print Edition
Rare teas more than half a century old will take center stage at Hong Kong’s first tea auction, with a prized narcissus oolong variety expected to fetch HK$1 million (US$129,000), organizers said yesterday.
More than 40 lots of vintage tea leaves from private collectors in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan will feature in the sale on Saturday, with the oldest dating back to the 1950s.
In total they are slated to fetch more than HK$3 million.
“The Chinese have a very long tea-drinking history, like French people drinking wine,” tea expert and auction organizer Vincent Chu said yesterday on the first day of the auction preview.
“The auction is like opening a gate to all of Hong Kong people and tea collectors.”
Tea auctions already take place in the mainland but Chu predicted Hong Kong could also become a hub for collectors.
“I think this is a market with a lot of potential — during the 2000s a lot of people bought tea in tons and, at certain periods, people were crazily selling tea like they would sell property,” he said.
Hong Kong has already emerged as one of the world’s major auction hubs for art and wine, thanks to cash-rich buyers from the mainland with an appetite for luxury items.
The star lot is the 20-kilogram box of narcissus oolong tea, first exported from China’s famous tea-producing region of Wuyi, in southeastern Fujian Province, to Singapore in the 1960s.
In Singapore, the tea was sold to a merchant in Malaysia who kept three boxes for himself as he liked the taste so much. One of those is up for auction.
A pack of pu’er tea from southwestern Yunnan Province, dating from the 1950s is expected to fetch HK$400,000.
For collectors, said Chu, the steep price is well worth it.
“You can still find freshness in the aftertaste, this is quite amazing — you can experience the freshness from half a century before,” he said.
The taste of older leaves is silkier as they went through decades of oxidation, Chu said.
The auction will also showcase 145 lots of teaware, with the total list expected to fetch up to HK$10 million.
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