HAIKOU: Hainan is famous for its coffee among tourists but the island's residents have a taste for the local herbal tea.

The popularity of the beverage is reflected in the more than 20 traditional recipes leisurely drunk in teahouses on the streets of the provincial capital, Haikou.

It is in these teahouses that some of the locals have been gathering around wooden or plastic tables, sitting on bamboo chairs, imbibing their favorite drink - and watching broadcasts of the Olympic torch relay in Haikou.

At one downtown teahouse yesterday, about a dozen elderly residents followed a daylong broadcast of the relay by Hainan Television Station. Some of them thought it a pity that they were too old to follow the event on the streets.

"My old friends and I have been talking about the relay for several weeks and we decided to watch it together in the teahouse," said Li Xuquan, a retired plumber.

Li, a native of the island, retired last year after working at Hainan University for more than a decade. Every time a torchbearer from the university appeared on TV, he would excitedly talk about the man or woman.

"The university really has a big show going on this time - the torch passed its gate and it has quite a few torchbearers," Li said proudly.

"This is a place where everyone is related to each other in one way or another - we all know some torchbearers and our grandchildren are in the streets cheering for them," he told China Daily.

The teahouse where Li was often played host to young men and women sporting T-shirts displaying large Olympic logos - with a small national flag pasted on one side of the face and an Olympic flag on the other.

"There are no classes today, and we want to have a look at the Olympic flame. There are 12 of us here and we left the dormitory at six in the morning so that we could have a good place to see the event," said Zhang Liang, a junior at Hainan University who is from Wenchang, on the southern coast of the island.

"There is no relay scheduled for my hometown, so my family wants me to send back the pictures."

Near the teahouse stood 29-year-old Fu Yuxia, who was selling coconuts in the street.

"My son's sports teacher is a torchbearer - he is the 83rd one to run," she said proudly while opening a coconut.

Fu said that she has met the teacher several times because he believed that her son, Xiaoqiang, has a talent in basketball.

"He is only 12 and already very tall, and his teacher, the torchbearer, says that he may become a player for the national team in the future," she said.

"I really want to watch his sports teacher running today, but as you can see, all these coconuts have to be sold while they are fresh."