During your travel in Beijing, you cannot miss exploring Chinese tea culture apart from visiting the most renowned tourist attractions in Beijing. Since it serves as the capital of China, you will surely encounter all kinds of tea brands in China, especially those with higher qualities.

Old Beijing Tea Culture

Although Beijing doesn’t produce tea leaves, Beijing is a place full of tea culture. The most well-known tea culture site is the Laoshe Teahouse, where people drink tea, chat and watch traditional Chinese culture performances such as Peking Opera, drama and acrobatics. This teahouse is located on West Street of Qianmen. Taking Subway Line 2, you can get there. Drinking tea for Old Beijingers is one type of relaxation, and during the time they also eat some fine desserts, which have many kinds, taste good and are small. Drinking tea at a traditional teahouse is fine, and hearing the stories about tea seems even more interesting.

Stories about tea

In China there are quite a few stories about tea. Sitting in a teahouse or just reading a book about tea culture, you will suddenly realize that drinking tea is a good habit worth keeping. One of the stories about the advent of tea is very interesting.

The story is like this: One of the earliest rulers of China tasted the flavors and functions of various grasses and got poisoned, and he finally got saved by eating tea leaves. It is said that in the earliest time of China, tea leaves were mainly used in Chinese medicine.

Another story about Longjing Tea is also interesting. It is said that Emperor Qianlong once toured the Longjing Shifeng Mountain in Hangzhou and saw a few ladies picking tea leaves in front of some tea trees. He thought it was interesting and began to pick tea leaves himself. Suddenly a eunuch came and reported the emperor’s mother was very sick. The emperor immediately set off for Beijing but some tea leaves were still held in his hands. Days after when he returned to Beijing and came to his mother, who smelt the flavor of the tea leaves clenched in his son’s hands and soon recovered. This was a surprise for Qianlong, who then named the tea trees where he picked tea leaves imperial tea trees which were only used to provide tea for his mother.

Famous and reputed tea brands in Beijing

Zhangyiyuan Tea Shop

Established in 1900, Zhangyiyuan is a time-honored brand in Chinese tea. Zhangyiyuan has over 300 types of tea, ranging from Green tea, black tea, flower tea, Oolong Tea, Health-care tea etc,

Maliandao Tea City

Maliandao Tea Street, the biggest tea market in Beijing, is a unique Chinese tea street attracting numerous worldwide tea lovers and visitors.

Wuyutai Tea House

Founded in 1887, Wuyutai Tea house has been devoted to distributing tea, tea products, tea sets and other tea related articles.