SINGAPORE, 21 November 2012 – Tea proved to be the true guest-of-honour at the inaugural Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge held at the at-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy in Singapore yesterday. Driven by the single-minded aim of putting the ‘tea’ back into ‘high tea’, 12 professional culinary teams from Singapore’s top hospitality establishments displayed sheer culinary genius as they impressed the panel of internationally acclaimed and illustrious judges with their take on contemporary ‘real’ high tea.
Focusing on the versatility of tea as both a traditional beverage and a contemporary culinary ingredient, the teams were required to create bespoke tea-inspired menus. The entries were judged on tea preparation, tea mixology, tea pairing and tea inspired cuisine as well as the quality and creativity of overall presentation and the contestants’ culinary expertise and knowledge.
The judging panel comprised of Dilmah’s Founder’s younger son, Dilhan C. Fernando, Black Hat Chef Bernd Uber, Chief Executive Officer of at-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy Christophe Megel, and Marina Mandarin Executive Chef Tony Khoo.
The Gold medal winners are Chong Pei Zhin, Junior Sous Chef, and Sabrina Lim Yen Peng, Assistant Manager, from Resorts World Sentosa. Ultimately, their exquisite menu of tea and food pairings gave them the winning edge over the other teams and wowed the judges. The pair will be walking away with a 10-day all-expense paid trip to Sri Lanka, the home of Dilmah Tea and represent Singapore in the Dilmah Real High Tea Global Challenge in May 2014, where they will take on winners from eight other participating countries.
Founder of Dilmah Tea, Mr. Merrill J. Fernando, whose passion for real tea and exploring its marvelous versatility inspired the Real High Tea Challenge, commented, “Dilmah’s intention is to elevate the understanding of tea gastronomy in the high tea tradition and from what we’ve seen today, we expect a change nothing short of brilliant for the F&B industry and tea lovers from hereon.”
On the Singapore entries, Judge Christophe Megel added, “We are anticipating a stellar performance by the Singapore team at the Global Challenge in 2014.”
The Real High Tea Challenge is endorsed by the World Association of Chefs’ Societies (WACS), whose judging criteria were used to assess all entries. The Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge will continue, moving on to the Netherlands, Poland, France, Indonesia, Thailand and the Czech Republic, with the global finale celebrated in Sri Lanka in 2014.