21/5 is International Tea Day by the United Nation in 2019 (https://www.un.org/en/observances/tea-day). 

The essence of that day goes beyond promoting tea but emphasizing the promotion of social culture, health and respects in humanity through tea serving. Since the migration of tea started with via the first trade route from China with the West via the Grand Silk Road in 2 century before Christ, tea has been integrated in different cultures and today there are many interesting tea cultures in the world. 

In China we name 21/5 as “International Tea Serving Day”, because we strongly believe with the tea serving culture we can improve the social contacts / relationships and harmony in the social integration process for world peace.

Even though right now the Corona infection number in Belgium is still high, but people are getting tired and we all hope to get the life back as soon as possible.  In the time when people are still coping with stress from the pandemic, the fear for international conflicts is mounting, we really need to promote more hopes, dreams and positive energy by stimulating the social economy and prosperity growth in the future.

Our concern is what and how to help many KMO or shops in Antwerp to get their feet on the ground by getting customers back, as elsewhere in the world.

However, for this project in Antwerp, in Flanders or in Belgium, we need to overcome some basic obstacles:

Right now the rules and the ‘normal logical thinking’ about free-of-charge serving tea can be considered as “abnormal”:

  • First of all, it is not a business promotion event, but a culture & social culture promotion event. But with the free tea serving, it does can help to stimulate the customer relationships that hopefully can stimulate the business growth indirectly.
  • It is not about tea or Chinese tea culture; we actual encourage the promote of various tea culture from the world; it is about the humanity and respects in the world culture as one.
  • Whoever are willing to participate this social culture event, must understand and agree that day is to serve tea for free.  The whole idea is promoting relationship with customers and citizenships.
  • The challenge that we are facing are food safety regulations and taxation which could put off the willingness to participate this culture & social promotion event.
  • 21/5/2021 is Friday, considering there will be more people come to Antwerp for shopping on Saturday, therefore we propose to make this Free Tea Serving event as 2-day culture social promotion event in Antwerp.

Belgium Chinese Tea Culture Association is a non-governmental and not-for-profit culture association.

  • Our mission is to promote peace, harmony, respect to the ECO nature and humanity in society through tea and tea serving.
  • First of all, we would like to clarify that we do not expect subsidy from the government or participants. We do need the permission from the government and understanding from the authority. 
  • On the contrary we are willing to support non-tea shops who are interested to participate this culture promotion event with 100gm of tea to not-tea shops in Antwerp of their choice, free-of-charge, so they can organize the free tea serving stand in their own way.  

Why I want to organize and promote this event in Antwerp?  Answers are very simple

  • The world needs peace but not conflicts; Antwerp is a unique centre in Europe for its cultural diversity where we need to promote more positive energy and more collateral harmony in our society to overcome stress from the pandemic and to build a better future for our younger generations.
  • ik ben een Antwerpenaar en Antwerpen is mijn 2de “thuisland” . Promoting health in body & mind, positive energy and harmony in our society is something I can do and I love to do.

I do hope to have your participation and support on this meaningful project.  If you have any question, please feel free to contact me:

Mei Lan Hsiao

Chinese Tea Master

Belgium Chinese Tea Culture Association

Tel: +32 494 50 68 99

Email: info@chinesetea.be

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