Eat, Drink, Singapore - Brewing the right way at Origin Teahouse

founders of Origin Tea House are challenging. Now they believe that in brewing tea the right way, well, the tea will speak for itself. So Origin Tea house's menu pairs fresh fruit and florals with hand chosen. And less common tea varieties from China and these include uh Jin Junmei and Yu Gui cha. So uh here to spotlight this pure authentic tea, we have Ethan King and Lee Wensi. They are the co-founders of Origin Tea House. It's nice to have both of you on the show. Welcome.

Hello. Hi. OK, so you know you both of you, you believe in brewing tea the right way. What exactly is the right way? So in Singapore, a beverage, right, every cost of a beverage is like $5.06 dollars, $7 sometimes even up to $9 or $10 right? So I think we can establish the fact that it's already almost a luxury because that is the same price as a full meal in Singapore. Yeah, so, so the fact that if I were to visit a fine dining restaurant and somebody serves me canned food or

processed food, I mean, you wouldn't really like it, right? So, same thing, so. It's an industrial norm to, you know, lump together a bunch of chemicals, addictives, and, you know, you know, come out with a bit of like a Misleading marketing and whatever, you know, let people know that this is a high quality beverage or or whatever they

are doing. So, so what we feel like is, you know, uh, Singaporeans or consumers in general actually deserves to, you know, be treated right, you know, like not just uh. You know, uh, giving them like an emotional like satisfying the emotional need, but also I see the health and everything is also a very important part of the F&;B industry and entire experience. So not necessarily something that's very trendy nowadays, right? Yeah, I mean it's important to make money, right?

I get it, but you know, at the same time somebody has to be responsible for the consumers themselves and I think transparency of ingredients is really not practiced. You know, nowadays it's everything because for whatever reason it is, people have been using, it's an industrial norm to use

heavily processed ingredients. Uh, I get it as a business owner, you can maximize the profits, but you know, is that really the right thing to do or you know, was that really the The original intentions of, you know, why people started F&;B back in the past, so it also leads back to the reason why the name origin. Yeah, I can imagine the name origin tea house makes a lot of sense now and so you're really sticking to the to the

to the roots of tea brewing. So we know that tea is a great alternative to coffee, but what are some of the natural properties of tea that make you both, uh, you know, such strong believers in the benefits of tea? For of this, right? I think, I think a lot of people, you know, there's some that might say that, you know, it's not good, not that good, but actually at the end of the day, right, everything in moderate is actually pretty healthy. So I mean, I myself, I'm,

I'm a, I drink a lot, honestly. When I'm at my shop, I probably drink like 56 cups a day of tea. Yeah, yeah. So and people will be wondering like, um, uh, are you sure will health be OK? Can you sleep at night and stuff, so. Actually, uh, tea that are of like better qualities and stuff, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't be so, they wouldn't make you be able to sleep or your heart palpate or anything like that so that the caffeine level wouldn't be

that high. be harmful to the body, right, because there are some benefits here and there. I mean, I mean, I mean there are some people that, yeah, they drank tea. I have friends that told me this personally like. Uh, they can't drink tea because if they do even coffee, when they do that, they even during the day, right, if they drink it, they will they will have heart palpation, they can't sleep at night, they will have restless night, but even after drinking tea, you know, they're still OK

with it. So actually, uh, you know, tea is actually a very It's a very healthy thing, you know, yeah, so I mean they, they, they not only just improve your, you know, your blood pressure, your, your cardio health, they, you know, it actually also improves some gut health, reduce cancer and, you know, alleviates stress and anxiety as you can, you can tell when you know, you know, old people, they would just sit around and they would just drink some sort of, you know, you never see old people sit

around and drink pot of like you know coffee or something. That's a really good point, Ethan, and just to share because I personally, I don't drink coffee at all, but I drink tea, a lot of tea. I really enjoy tea, green teas, white teas, black teas, uh, so I understand what you're saying about tea and you're right and then the, the good thing about tea is they're also caffeine-free versions, whereas coffee, uh, decaf coffee is like you might as

well don't drink coffee, right? So I love that versatility about tea. Uh, I want to know how the both of you met and then start the started the ball rolling for Origin Tea House. Who's this? Uh, so we had like some mutual friends, so we see each other pretty often like on at

dinners and stuff. So, you know, just one fine day we eventually exchanged contacts, started talking, hit off pretty well because I think we have very similar character in the sense that we have, we are able to think differently in the sense that if if I'm unhappy with a certain thing and Ethan is unhappy with a certain issue with me. You know, we can just scold each other off and you know, but we can still be cool the next second because I know that he's targeting this incident or

this event and not me personally. So, so kind of you know respected each other in a way I feel like it makes me, you know, feel like maybe this guy could be a business partner and then one fine day while we were talking like, you know, what are we doing recently, we're just having a casual chat and Uh, Ethan actually proposed an idea and actually I was already acting on it, so like I was acting on it for like almost a month and uh just so

coincidentally that yeah brought up the same topic so we're like, why not just join forces and it was it was it was it was really like, you know, you know sometimes. If you ask me, I mean, I think doing business, right, the hardest thing is to find someone that's aligned with you. Yeah, especially when it's the call team, it's really very hard to find someone like that. So I was really lucky that, you know, just nice when I was talking about this because I mean, I was very interested in

doing this. And then when I was talking to Mi about this idea, and then he was like telling me I'm doing the same thing, you know. Oh, OK, then we we have to, then we have to, you know, discuss this thing more and then yeah, eventually became where we are. Yeah, OK, that's great. Uh, and so, so, so this whole collaboration brought you on a 13 month R&;D journey in China. Tell us more about that whole experience and what you took away when it comes to 16 months, wow, that's even longer,

more than a year. Yeah, tell us. I learned that it's it's really, really, really not easy. I mean, I mean we have we have been to places that can't even like you I think nobody will usually just go to those kind of places and Yeah, I mean, one of us fell into like the bushes, you know, and so did you go to like like the more ulu parts of China? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can share the Jasmine part, so, um, uh, they'll say there is a little, I will call it a town in Guangxi, Guangxi province in China. So there's this little town called Hengxie. Apparently, you know, 80% of the jasmine flowers in the world comes from this particular town. So, but the town is really, you know, a town like what you expect. Like, even the toilets you have to squat down. But, but interestingly enough, it's uh it's very run down, about 70% of all the people living there are actually

in the Jasmine farming business. So, but not as much as it's run down, you know, the food is great and I think the one most memorable incident is really. Uh, when I just got off the car, right, even the air smells like jasmine flowers must be very fragrant, because the entire place is like surrounded by jasmine farms and factories. Yeah, yeah, so that was one of the more incident, but I will say if anything that we learn, right, honestly.

I will say it's like literally everything we know now, you know, we we actually like you're applying what you learned into your business, yeah, yeah, it's like from I think doing nothing to, you know, knowing, knowing a lot of like the industrial secrets and also because we also met like uh what's the word for it like mentors like mentors, yeah benefactors yeah OK.

All right, that's cool. Um, I want to find out a bit more about the different types of tea that you offer at Origin because I understand you have pure milk, fruit tea and lattes. Can you tell us a bit more about the different variations? Yeah, you don't want to go. Yeah, OK, so, uh, for pure tea, right, we actually we have 5 kinds. Uh, let's start from the lightest, the lightest, uh, this two has flocent, which is our jasmine that we were just talking about it.

Uh, jasmine green tea, I think that's the most common one that a lot of people know as well, right? So, uh, followed by Gardinia garina green tea, and then, uh, we continue to, uh, Yuui tea, yena we call it yena, so it's. Next, it's it's a special type of tea that you know, it's quite cool. So it actually doesn't grow like other normal tea, they actually grow in mountain creeks, you know, so their root goes deep into the creeks and all.

So you absorb all the minerals, giving you this cinnamon taste. Yeah, followed by the next one, the Jin Jin Mei, so, uh, it's uh It's a type of hong cha, right, that hongcha is a red black tea, black tea, sorry, yeah, it's a black, it's not a black tea that you know I think that is like one of the most special one that we have also because.

The tea leaves itself, right, it actually gives this honey scent, so it actually elevates elevates the sweetness of the tea while, you know what, still keeping the sugar level in check, you know, a lot of people after they drank our tea, they ate. They they they thought there's a lot of sugar, but you know what, there's only like 5% of the entire drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, followed by Tang, I think a lot

of people know that's quite famous, right? Yeah, yeah. So, uh, these are like the tea base that we have, uh, we can do it milk or without with milk or without milk, yeah. So another 11 that is quite cool is our tea espresso. So correct, so coffee drinkers will want to if that once an alternative, right, they can actually consider this because.

I mean, the whole process of making coffee, you know, you, you get a coffee bean, you grind it, and then you jack it up into the machine, the espresso machine, and then it will, it will use high pressures, uh, steam and hot water to actually get the thing out, right? Yeah, so instead of coffee bean, we basically use a duck roasted cake wanting for this. Yeah, correct, correct. It's a very good alternative for people that's keen to explore because uh it's actually a lot.

Uh, in my, in my opinion, I think it's a lot healthier than, you know, because it doesn't, uh, it doesn't give you the caffeine crush like coffee. What's the difference between a milk tea and a tea latte? OK, uh, it tastes like coffee. It's literally, uh, let me just add on this point. So, uh, the tea latte is intentionally designed to be a coffee alternative, right?

Ethan mentioned because it tastes almost like coffee firstly because of the dark roasting of the taekwaning beef, and secondly it also uh it's a perfect alternative in the sense that Ethan also mentioned. There's no caffeine crash or jitters. So, you know, if you are a coffee drinker and you know you need 2 or 3 cups a day, I think the second cup, right, this could be a very good and it's also less

stressful on your gastric. I drink a lot of coffee and I now I have a gastric depending on the days I might not be able to drink one. OK, so, um, my producer Janine, she went down to check you guys out and she said the Yuui cha was her favorite because it has a bit of a cinnamon taste that, you know, she really enjoyed, especially when it was paired with milk. I got to ask the two of you, what are your favorites at Origin tea?

We see, what's your favorite? Yeah, it's a very complex profile, it's not just a cinnamon, you know, you get a very mild hint of also. Uh, nectar at the end, so it almost like a sweet finish, but at the same time it's very complex, it's multilayer. So, uh, I think that's the one that gets you hooked for the people who are willing to try. I'm definitely coming down to check you guys out. Ethan, what's your favorite? Mine, uh, OK, so I, I don't really drink. I'm

lactose intolerant, so yeah, I try to avoid milk. I try to, but I still love milk, so I mean it's a love it situation here. So, uh, I usually just go for pure pure jasmine tea, pure jasmine green tea, so, uh, without sugar as well, so yeah, I try to take less sugar for me. Yeah, and I can imagine because Jasmine, uh, after you swallow the tea, there's a bit of that aftertaste that kind of lingers in your mouth as well, right? So that's really enjoyable. Yeah, I can imagine.

Uh, how jasmine tea would be favorite as well. Uh, there's also a very nice tea that's quite popular. Can you tell me a bit about that one? Yeah, so, uh, we use fresh strawberries for this, you know, it's delivered every day and then we prepare the strawberry puree in the morning before you know, serving it all. I mean, we usually just run out, you know, we would prepare it again. So there's actually 100 g of strawberry in every single cup of it.

You know, it it it we we brought it in as a seasonal item, but yeah, I think it's gonna be permanent. Yeah, OK, sounds sounds interesting. I mean, we're almost out of time, but I just want to ask before we let you go, I mean, obviously you guys are very committed to the authenticity of the tea and that's what you're trying to serve up with your customers. How do you hope to differentiate Origin tea house from all the other tea brands that are available in Singapore's market?

So for us, right, it's very simple. We like to keep things basic, basic, uh, so it's really just 100% fresh and natural tea beverages, right? Just no, no frills, no fuss, right? If you want a good cup of tea, and you know you want to indulge in something like, you know, your favorite bowl. Wow, we are concerned about your health and you know, just, just come down, just use origin you'll be pleasantly surprised that, you know, a healthy drink can also be very tasty.

I really regret missing the tasting that day but I had a meeting, so I will come and check you guys out on my own time. Ethan King and Lee Wensi, co-founders of Origin Tea House, they are located at 5 Kada Ya La Street. 01-058 Kada, that's a mall. They open from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily, but they close a little bit earlier on Sundays at 8 p.m. if you want to

check them out online, Origin Tea House on Instagram. Ethan and WeC, I wish you all the best with what you're trying to do with Origin Tea House and I'm sure your commitment to authenticity will take you very far. Thanks for joining us on E Drink Singapore.