Social media skits encourage Americans to sip Chinese tea

When American Jesse Appell drank his first cup of Chinese tea brewed from loose leaves in Beijing’s Maliandao market 13 years ago he was astonished to find there were 1,000 vendors to choose from.

Appell, from Boston, was a Fulbright scholar studying Chinese at Beijing Language and Culture University at the time.

Now 34, he liked Chinese tea so much that he eventually found a way to sell it to fellow non-Chinese Americans, a group that normally does not drink it, racking up more than 30,000 orders in the process. He did it by first selling Americans on Chinese culture – his chief mission – and then the tea followed.

Three years ago, Appell began challenging the usual American preferences for tea bags, tea powder or just coffee by producing Instagram and TikTok skits featuring the Chinese comedic performing art of crosstalk.

His appeal to American consumers has helped create business for the Chinese tea growers, packers and shippers who run the world’s largest tea-producing sector. Appell said one of his suppliers in southwest China’s Yunnan province has earned more than US$200,000 from wholesale tea that eventually went to American consumers.

“When I go back there every year, they’re super nice to me,” he said.