Tea | In Asian Culture, and in Rewind's Glass

If you ask me, “Why does Rewind love using tea in cocktails so much?”

I'd like to start by not talking about cocktails.

Because in Asia, tea has never been just a beverage; it exists in many people's everyday lives.

When someone comes to the house, we first brew a pot of tea; after a meal, a few cups of tea may still be left on the table; when talking things over, meeting friends, or even just wanting to sit quietly for a while, we all naturally spend time with tea.

And interestingly, different places all have tea cultures of their own.

From Taiwan's oolong and high-mountain tea, Japan's matcha and sencha, to the flavours shaped by different producing regions and tea-making techniques in China: the tea leaves are similar, yet because of the land, climate, processing, and the ways people drink them, they have developed entirely different characters and tea traditions.

So for us, tea is not merely an “Asian flavour”; tea itself is a way of understanding Asian culture.

This is also why we chose to make it a very important part of Rewind.

Of course, putting tea into a drink is not difficult.

What is truly difficult is how to let it, after it enters a cocktail, still retain its distinctive character, terroir, and the craft that a Tea Master can bring out.

We do not want to use large amounts of sugar or strong alcohol to cover it up, nor do we want “tea” to end up as only a name on the drinks menu.

Some teas are suited to retaining their aroma; some are suited to bringing tannins and structure; some, having been roasted, can add depth to a drink; some only need to appear very gently to change the finish of the whole drink.

So what we do, rather than “adding tea to cocktails,”

is perhaps better described as searching for:

Where should tea and alcohol meet each other?

On one side is the tea culture we have been familiar with for a long time; on the other is the language we have chosen to create with today: cocktails.

If, in the end, a cocktail makes you begin to feel a little curious about the tea in your glass—

Where does it come from? Why does it have this kind of aroma? What would it taste like without alcohol?

For Rewind, the story of this drink has only just begun.

Tea is where we come from. Cocktails are how we continue the conversation.