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Interview |
| We are honoured to interview Mr Yeung today. Can you first introduce your Chinese herb tea shop before we start our interview? |
| My shop was set up by my grandfather. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the living condition in the mainland was poor, so my grandfather moved southward to Hong Kong. He was a Chinese doctor and he carried on his job after he came to Hong Kong. However, due to the lack of resources and money, he was not able to provide medicine to his patient. Later, he decided to start a shop to sold Chinese healthy drinks, which can remove extra heat in the body. Chinese herb tea shop was very popular at that time since people living in southern China had a lot of extra water and heat in their body. In addition, the labour force always drank alcohol which was bad for their health. Therefore, they needed to drink the herb tea to clear their intestines and stomach. The shop is then run until now. |
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| What is Chinese herb tea? |
| Chinese herb tea is divided into sweet tea and bitter tea. 'Herb tea' is only a general name for all teas which can relieve extra heat and poison in the body. Chinese pharmacology requires the balance of negative and positive component in the body. The tea can balance the extra heat in the body and makes you feel comfortable. |
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| What are the effects of the twenty-four tastes tea? |
| The twenty-four tastes tea is effective for removing extra heat and wet, as well as healing influenza. It is also useful in curing indigestion and poor appetite. |
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| Who needs to drink Chinese herb tea? |
| Basically, everyone is suitable to drink the tea, but it depends on their own daily habit. For example, people who always eat oily food or staying up late need to drink more of the tea. The demand for the tea will be greater when the weather is changing and many people catch colds. |
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| Are there any people who are not suitable to drink the tea? |
| People having very poor physique, pregnant women and females in the menstruation period are not suitable to drink the tea. People need to pay special attention to this. |
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| How about youngsters like us? |
| It is good for you. Children should have a habit of drinking herb tea. (However, we think the twenty-four tastes tea is very bitter.) It does actually, but you will not think it is bitter once you have accepted its taste. |
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| Which group of people buy your tea? |
| Actually every age group from children to elderly and people of any job. Customers are mainly from the elderly group since they understand more of the tea positively. Youngsters nowadays do care about their health. Although they are reluctant to taste the tea, they soon accept it when they see the effect of drinking the tea. Comparatively speaking, the elders approve on us more than youngsters since they will have a cup of the tea once they feel uncomfortable or drink it as a daily practice, but youngsters only try it when they get sick. |
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| What do you think is the speciality of the Chinese herb tea in Hong Kong? |
| The speciality has lost with the decreasing tradition. Chinese herb tea shop is only two big copper pots with some desserts and snacks in the mind of the new generation. However, we do not have this kind of things in traditional shops. We only sell sweet tea and bitter tea instead. The way of business has been changed. People expect to have desserts more than herb teas. |
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| How do you think the future of running this business is? |
| Our herb tea business will gradually be outdated. As I have said just now, the form of business has already changed. Once people accept the new concept, the traditional ones will be rejected and slowly forgotten. The future of the traditional Chinese herb tea shop really depends on how the new generation think about it. |
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| There are quite a number of new herb tea shops nowadays. Do you think they will compete with your business? |
| For sure we will have more competing rivals. They have large source of money and they can advertise a lot. Since people can easily affected by the mass media, the more advertisement they made, the more they can get people¡¦s approval. But just try to compare their products with ours. Can they really replace us? Is the effects of both teas the same? These are the questions we need to think about. |
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| Thank you very much for conducting the interview with us. We shall end our interview here. |