Chinese hotel denies selling tea eggs for 3k yuan

Cheap, nutritious and tasty, tea-boiled eggs are a ubiquitous street snack in China. And at around 2 yuan ($0.3) a pop, the price is definitely part of the popularity.

That’s why a luxury hotel in East China was at the center of online discussions after an ad for gourmet tea-boiled eggs going for an eye-popping 2,899 yuan each went viral.

However on Sunday, the hotel refuted the advert as false and plans to build a lawsuit for defamation.

“This is not an ordinary tea egg,” reads a caption in the widely circulated advert for Toaytt Hotel & Resorts in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.

The artisanal eggs are “laid by chickens living at an altitude of 1,140 meters and boiled in top-quality Jin Jun Mei tea leaves,” it reads.

The eggs are stewed in Chinese medicine and spices for 24 hours, then are left to steep for another 12 hours before being served, read the ad, which over the weekend stirred up comments on social media.

“Will eating these (astronomically-priced) eggs send me to the heavens?” wrote a Sina Weibo user.

“It costs half my monthly salary,” said another.

The hotel took to WeChat, dismissing the circulated advert as being photoshopped.

A spokesperson surnamed Cai speaking to The Paper called the ad libelous, adding the hotel has contacted lawyers with plans to press charges.

“We have tea eggs in our breakfast buffet, but we don’t sell single eggs,” Cai said.