The 8th Chinese Tea Olympic Games, a renowned pageant in the tea circle, was held in Longwu Tea Town in Xihu District of Hangzhou on September 24. This was the first tea-themed competition for tea practitioners and tea enterprises in China. The event was launched to implement the spirit of the important speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping on “coordinated development of tea culture, tea industry and tea technology” and to accelerate the upgrading and transformation of the tea industry and advance common prosperity. 

Founded in 2014, Chinese Tea Olympic Games includes tea contest, tasting, forum, display and appraisal, and is a platform for communicating with tea practitioners and tea enterprises, demonstrating tea making skills and promoting the innovative development of the tea industry. This year’s event involves the Classical Song-style Tea Ceremony Contest and the First National Famous Tea Pastries Competition.

The Song-style Tea Ceremony Contest fell into traditional contest category and innovative contest category. The traditional contest category involved the Song-style tea ceremony contest with tea powder as raw materials, while the innovative contest category focused on the performance of tea pouring and tea whisking with tea as raw materials, and the presentation of tea after adding boiled water.

The tea brewing contest between human and machine was eye-catching for its technological elements. This was a contest between intelligent tea brewing machine and outstanding tea specialists. The participants displayed the best tea brewing techniques based on the quality and characteristics of different varieties of tea. It was a combination of the aesthetic skills of traditional tea ceremony and the modern technological progress.