Best of Singapore Tea Festival 2018

Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to look at the highlights of the Singapore Tea Festival. Here are out favourite moments from the Singapore Tea Festival!

If you were there early on the first day, you might have noticed that the opening of the Singapore Tea Festival wasn’t like other events. That’s because the opening of the Singapore Tea Festival was also the launch of teapasar!

From left to right: Alan Lai (co-founder of teapasar), Lock Wai Han (Head of Media Literacy Council), Wilson Tan (CEO of CapitaLand Mall Asia), Dr Chew Wee (Research Scientist from A*STAR), and Dr Wong Yee Ting (Deputy Director of the FNCC Cluster at A*STAR)

As a mark of recognition that teapasar isn’t just another online marketplace, our guest of honour for our launch was Senior Minister of State Sim Ann, who gave a speech on the future of the tea industry, and how a start-up like teapasar is an exemplar of how SMEs can harness technology to value add to their customers. This was followed by keynote speeches by our research collaborators, Professor Zhou Weibiao from the Food Science and Technology Programme in NUS, and Dr. Chew Wee from A*STAR’s BioTransformation Innovation platform.

From left to right: Alan Lai (co-founder of teapasar), Senior Minister of State Sim Ann (Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth), and Prof Liew Mun Leong (Chairman of Changi Airport Group)

After the opening ceremony, we got the opportunity to demonstrate our taste matching technology to Senior Minister of State Sim Ann, before she got to meet a few of our wonderful merchants!

From left to right: Angela Phua (A.muse Projects), contestant Chanya (The Orange Tea, Bangkok Thailand), contestant Dave (Parchmen & Co.), contestant Justin (Parchmen & Co.), judge Sharyn Johnston (Australian Tea Masters), contestant and overall winner Clarkson (d’Good Cafe), judge Nathan Johnston (Coffee Cartel), judge Jeff Ho (Da Vinci Gourmet), contestant Zack (d’Good Cafe), and contestant Max (d’Good Cafe).

Day 2 of the Singapore Tea Festival gave both merchants and visitors the chance to witness this year’s Tea Master’s Cup. Hosted by Australian Tea Masters, this year’s competition saw the contestants try their hand at tea mixology, where they used tea to create innovative tea beverages. The winner was Clarkson from d’Good Cafe, who will move ahead to represent Singapore in the World Championships. Congratulations, Clarkson!

Team teapasar at work explaining the site to customers

All of you who created an account on teapasar would have been shown how to use our ProfilePrint technology to find your top four recommended teas. And every time you told us that a certain tea that appeared was one of your favourites – we cheered! We hope that you continue to use the recommendation engine by tweaking your preferences based on teas that you’ve tried. Remember, the more you use ProfilePrint, the more accurate our recommendations.

Complete your ProfilePrint on teapasar.com to receive 4 tea recommendations specific to your preferences!

For those who were not able to join us at Singapore Tea Festival this year, fret not. You can still create an account on teapasar.com, and start specifying your taste preferences. Click on ‘find my perfect blend’ to see which teas have been recommended, based on what YOU like!

We will also be launching our very first brick-and-mortar soon, where, for a very small fee, you’d be able to sample your recommended teas and stock up your tea pantry! In the meantime, teapasar.com is now home to over 40 tea brands and plantations!

Follow us on @teapasar!

Do you know what’s better than your smiles when you sign up? Seeing all your instagram posts and stories! We absolutely loved watching your posts and we always did a cheer whenever we got a notification from someone tagging us. Whether it’s a photo of you and the cup, or a photo of you and your new teas, we absolutely enjoyed every one of them. Continue tagging (and hashtagging) us as you buy from teapasar – we look forward to hearing more from you.

Tea situation at 3.30pm on Friday

Despite a really hectic three days, the best part of the festival truly was meeting all of you – tea lovers and the tea-curious alike. Despite occasional connectivity issues, many of you were still all smiles and extremely understanding – and for that, we’re eternally grateful.

From collecting your free sampling cups, to trying new teas at our 28 merchant booths; we really enjoyed seeing all your happy faces. We hope that you’ve brought home our eco-friendly sampling cup, and continue to use it for tea tasting until the next Singapore Tea Festival!

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And this concludes the highlights of Singapore Tea Festival 2018. Share with us your favourite parts! We’d love to hear from you, x.