Winning Blend Makes Return

Teahouses regain their popularity, especially with the younger generation, after adapting to save their business amid cultural shifts

Chinese people have been drinking tea for more than 1,000 years, with teahouses becoming almost as popular during that time as the drink itself.

In northern China, traditional Beijing-style teahouses have regained their popularity in recent years.

Wen Hong, 39, works and lives in the Chinese capital. As a fan of Peking Opera, he has been visiting teahouses for shows since 2000. "I like to drink tea while enjoying the performance," Wen said. "It's relaxing."

Teahouses are places where people can enjoy the taste of fine tea and desserts, amuse themselves with traditional shows, or just have a chat.

Along with the tea, teahouses usually serve traditional snacks while presenting traditional Chinese cultural heritage, such as Peking Opera and shadow puppetry.

Wen will sometimes choose a teahouse to meet with friends, drink tea while talking to them, or play a board game.

He is not the only one who enjoys the teahouse.

Yin Zhijun, president of Laoshe Teahouse in Beijing, said: "With tea and snacks, many people now use teahouses as their parlor to do business because it is relatively formal but also relaxing. They feel the office is too serious, while home is too private."

She said increasing numbers of companies prefer teahouses to host banquets thanking customers for their support every year.

Teahouses are also popular among the young generation. From elementary school students to young adults, this generation is flocking to teahouses more than ever before. According to the Laoshe Teahouse's estimate, the average age of consumers is about 30.

Zhou Xin, a 26-year-old woman living in Beijing, said: "I'm eager to go to the teahouse because I love drama so much. I think this is a part of Beijing culture and I want to experience it."

Opened in 1988, Laoshe Teahouse has become not just a travel destination in the capital, but a showcase of Chinese culture, especially Beijing-style culture, which attracts visitors.

Laoshe Teahouse has been luckier than the fictional Yutai Teahouse, a place in playwright Lao She's drama Teahouse, which had to close due to revolutionary volatility.

However, 20 years ago, Yin could not have expected the now-thriving teahouse market, as there were only a few visitors, with most of them age 50 or even older.

After China's reform and opening up, various forms of Western entertainment entered the country. This new foreign culture continued to draw Chinese, especially the younger generation, to discos or karaoke lounges, rather than teahouses. Under this Western cultural influence, traditional Chinese culture started to lose its attraction.

The popularity of the internet also made its presence felt, changing and expanding the type and scale of content people could enjoy.

Sports, films and TV shows came to China from around the world via the internet, giving people countless choices. In comparison, classical culture appeared somewhat old-fashioned.

The time span involved also lured potential audiences away, since the stories behind most of the classics took place in an age far removed from present-day life. And when the lines were spoken in classical Chinese, they were even harder to understand.

So, teahouses have had to adapt to save their business amid these cultural shifts.

Yin and her team turned to senior artists and experts to help find and preserve the traditional art forms and folklore. As a result, customers can now choose from Peking Opera, crosstalk (a traditional Chinese comedic performing art), storytelling, acrobatics, magic and other Chinese traditional performances.

A crosstalk fan nicknamed Zhang Xiaojian said he realized he could "only find the real crosstalk and enjoy the beauty of it in teahouses or small theaters" rather than through radio or television programs.

He said some senior crosstalk artists once said the only way for crosstalk to thrive again was for it to return to the teahouses, where it enjoyed huge popularity.

"The support from the State is also very important," Yin said. "Especially in recent years, President Xi Jinping has focused a lot on revitalizing our traditional culture."

Laoshe Teahouse, as one of the time-honored brands, was selected as a traditional cultural education base. Last year, it received 52 groups of students, ranging from kindergarten to university, on educational tours of traditional culture.

The teahouse has also kept abreast of the times, adding innovative elements to these shows, such as borrowing from cyberculture or using high tech to attract younger audiences.

At a Friday afternoon crosstalk show, the auditorium was almost full with more than 200 people from different age groups.

Teahouses can be traced back hundreds of years to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when they first appeared and became popular, sweeping from south to north.

In the famed painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival, painter Zhang Zeduan vividly portrayed the scene in busy teahouses, showing their popularity in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), teahouse business reached its peak, combining the features of both restaurants and social platforms.

Now, teahouses are once again cultural venues while also shouldering the responsibility to preserve and promote traditional Chinese culture.

The return of teahouse popularity and traditional culture has attracted foreigners.

"We have also hosted more than 100 state leaders ... attracted by the charms of our traditional culture," Yin said.

In the past three years, Beijing Language and Culture University has teamed up with the Laoshe Teahouse for its international students to learn and experience Chinese culture.

One woman, Lei Lei, brought her British friend Steven to an evening performance at the teahouse. "He wanted to know something about Chinese culture, so I figured that here was probably the ideal place," she said.

However, this teahouse revitalization has some critics.

After visiting at least five teahouses, Wen Hong, the Peking Opera fan, felt that some had become too commercialized.

"I went to the Laoshe Teahouse for a performance by a well-known actor, but I thought he was just fooling about," Wen said. "Most of the audience was made up of tourists who only wanted to experience teahouse culture, rather than enjoy the show itself."

However, when he visited a teahouse in Tianjin, a major port city in northeastern China, the interaction between the actors and the audience impressed him greatly.

Zhang also said he may not choose a teahouse for a gathering if it did not involve crosstalk.

It is clear that teahouses still have a long way to go to truly return to daily life and their past glories.

"But it's fortunate that we paid attention to traditional culture," Yin said. "We just need some more time."

Contact the writer at liuxuan@chinadaily.com.cn

Clockwise from top: The gift shop at Laoshe Teahouse; customers watch performances at Laoshe Teahouse; Lei Lei brings her friend Steven, from the UK, to experience the tea culture.Photos By Liu Xuan / China Daily