A leading tea company and a museum partnered to launch a tea latte whose packaging reproduced ancient Buddhist pottery. Consumers were ecstatic, but the CCP was not amused.
by Chang Meixiu
It looked like a perfect partnership. Hey Tea, a leading tea company, and the Jingdezhen China Ceramics Museum partnered to launch a tea latte whose packaging reproduced images taken from ancient pottery exhibited in the popular museum. The three images were of the Speechless Bodhisattva, the Happy Arhat, and the Crouching Tiger Arhat, all revered Luohan (saintly) figures in Buddhism.
The “Hey Tea Buddha Latte” was launched on November 28, together with accompanying merchandise, and the success was phenomenal. Several netizens in different cities reported that the product was sold out in a few hours. In the following days, people had to queue outside the shops if they wanted to buy the tea latte.
A happy company and happy consumers? This was without considering the CCP’s suspicion against anything that may resemble promotion of religion in disguise. Hey Tea was accused of “violating the Regulation on the Administration of Religious Affairs,” and was obliged to take the product off the shelves. Of course, this only made the packages and merchandises collector’s items exchanged via social media at high prices.
The CCP claimed that the crackdown on Hey Tea Buddha Latte was made in the name of fighting the “commercialization of religion.” It was supported by some conservative Buddhists who said they were afraid that blasphemy might be committed if consumers would throw away or destroy the packages after drinking the tea latte.
However, most netizens did not believe that the authorities’ aim was to protect Buddhism from blasphemy. After all, they have dynamited dozens of Buddhist megastatues, which is also blasphemous, and are certainly not concerned if somebody destroys a package with Buddhist images.
The real reason for the demise of the Hey Tea Buddha Latte was that it was reintroducing Buddhist themes in the young Chinese’s pop culture and as such was considered a form of promotion of religion forbidden in China. Even tea latte may promote reactionary religious ideas, or so the CCP believes.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
