A day in the tea shop

Natalie and I set out this morning intending to make our way to the Forbidden city in the center of town. However, about half a block out of our hostel, we were greeted by the two owners of a tea store. We'd walk passed them yesterday saying that we might come back later. So, we decided that in the 47F weather we could use a cup of tea.

Nearly five hours later, we had tasted five different kinds of fresh Chinese tea, learned about (and seen parts of) Chinese tea ceremony, increased our knowledge about China, spent too much money and made two new friends. My favorite tea was the black lychee tea. Natalie preferred the "gun powder" tea - named as such because it was historically used to trade with Mongolians for horses and gun powder. It has a very unique taste and leaves your mouth feeling "earthy" for lack of a better description.

We drank our tea from cups about the size of 2/3 of a golf ball. The owner of the shop, XienChun, was a wonderful conversationalist with fluent English and a great amount of knowledge about the world. She smoothly and gracefully made tea and kept our cups full to their very tiny brims. Before serving a tea, she would clean the pot and cups with hot water several times. This was to ensure cleanliness and make the cups hot and ready to receive tea. Then, she would place them neatly in rows and begin to prepare the tea.

She would first let us smell the tea she was preparing as she took one spoonful from the large jars that lined one wall of the shop. The one spoonful of tea, she placed in a larger glass on a small plate (white glass in above picture). Then, she would pour hot water over the tea leaves. This first water was to rinse the tea leave and she would immediately drain it off, pouring the water over the frog in the lower right corner of the tray. This frog brings good luck and the hot water improves the color of it's clay.

Next, she would pour more hot water over the tea leaves and let it steep for about a minute. Then, she used the lid of the white cup to hold the leaves in as she poured the tea through a small strainer set on the top of a small glass tea pot. When doing the actual ceremony, the tea was then poured into the taller, narrow glasses.

We did not drink out of these glasses, however. After she poured the tea into the taller glasses, she covered them with the shorter rounder glasses. This was to seal the flavor in.

When serving the tea to us, she picked up the two cups together and flipped them over onto the small wooden plate in front of each of us. Because the tea was so hot, it created suction that held the two cups together.

After a moment, we removed the taller cup and the tea filled the short cup. The tea being served in the picture above is jasmine tea. Apparently, the steam from jasmine tea is good for the skin, so we moved the empty taller cup around in front of our faces until the steam dissipated. Finally, we drank delicately from the smaller cup. She continually refilled our cups until the pot was empty.

What an unexpectedly wonderful day.