Tea
Daniel and I have been enjoying Shanghai. I will go to the university here on Tuesday to meet with the students who are going to help me with my research. Until then, we are free to explore. Since I spent 5 weeks here last summer, I know the city fairly well and can get us around without too many problems. The other night, I took Daniel to a Thai restaurant that’s close to where we stayed last summer. He wasn’t a big fan of my green curry, but he enjoyed the satay he’d chosen. The street where the restaurant is located turns into a huge party on weekend nights, and I thought it might be fun for Daniel to see, but since it was still early after we’d finished dinner we headed farther down the street for a much more low-key bar. (There’s no drinking age in China.) We sat and enjoyed the quiet for a little while, watching as the bar girls primped and chatted, getting ready for the evening rush that would come later.
After an hour or so it was starting to get dark, and we decided to walk up the street a ways. Before we came to the club/bar section, we passed a tea house set back from the street through a nicely-lit bamboo grove. I looked at Daniel. “Please?” “You’re kidding.” “Oh come on, it will be an experience.” He sighed. “Whatever.” So in we went. The tea house was much bigger than it looked from the outside, stretching back for three or four rooms. The hostess settled us in one of the middle rooms. We were the only westerners there—unusual for this area of Shanghai, but maybe not so unusual for a tea house, I don’t know. The waiter brought us a menu, and waited while I flipped through it. I asked Daniel what he wanted. “I don’t like tea.” “Well, lets see, they have the fresh fruit shaved ice thingies that we’ve seen other places.” “Alright, get me a strawberry one.” I had decided on oolong tea. I told the waiter what we wanted, but he said they weren’t serving the fresh-fruit shaved ice thingies. I asked about another fresh fruit frozen thingy, in a different section of the menu. He called another server over. After about a five minute discussion between me and the two servers (the servers trying to explain that if we ordered from a certain part of the menu we could get fruit and other snacks from the buffet in the other room) I explained that we were not hungry and could we please just get tea and an ice thingy. “OK.” I wasn’t sure why that was so difficult, but I’m grateful that the servers were so patient with me.
Daniel’s mango ice thingy came, and then my tea, a tea pot and two tiny cups—one tall and slender and the other shorter and wider, sitting on a small wooden box with slits in the top. Another server came by to prepare the tea for me. First, she poured hot water over the teapot. She rinsed the tea leaves in the pot, pouring the tea over the cups again and then pouring it out, then refilling the teapot, and finally pouring tea into the slender cup, setting the wider cup on top, and flipping them with a flourish. She set it in front of me and left. The tea smelled delightful and tasted even better. The atmosphere was also nice with white lanterns hung from the ceiling and Chinese patrons relaxing at the other tables. Daniel was still a little irritated that I’d picked a tea house instead of a bar, but he graciously allowed me to enjoy my tea. He did remark that the dainty little cup was too hoity-toity for his taste.
We decided not to go back down the street and took the subway back to the hotel instead. The next day, we hopped back on the subway to go to the Shanghai Museum. We were wandering through the People’s Park to get from the subway to the museum, and looking for a place to grab some lunch, when we heard “Hello!” Daniel sighed. I turned around and said hello, and we stopped to chat with the two guys. They were college students from Xinjiang Province, way out in China’s northwest, and it was their first time in Shanghai. They asked us where we were going. We told them we were planning to visit the museum, but were looking for some lunch first. They told us they were going to a tea exhibition in a nearby mall; apparently a group from Fujian province comes to Shanghai every 3 years to hold this exhibition, and some of the guys’ friends had recommended it to them. I looked at Daniel. “Do you want another tea experience?” He sighed. “Sure, why not.” We followed the guys, chatting about football and Xinjiang and how life in Shanghai is so busy.
The tea ceremony was delightful. Even Daniel was impressed! We sampled six kinds of tea, a young woman preparing it for us and explaining special features of each tea and the proper etiquette for drinking it, and the guys translating whatever I couldn’t translate for Daniel. All of us really liked the oolong tea. The fruit-flower tea was another favorite, and the red tea with lychee flavor was also really good. The last tea was an “art tea,” not one of the traditional kinds, but really beautiful. It was a large ball, maybe an inch across, and the young woman explained that it was a flower on the inside, covered by jasmine leaves on the outside. She put it into a champagne glass, and poured hot water over it. We watched as the leaves opened, and a blossom emerged, forming a petal bridge in the water with a smaller colored petal in the center. It was beautiful.
A couple of us bought some tea, and then we exchanged email addresses with the guys. They headed off to wander the park some more, with plans to meet up with friends that night to watch the World Cup game between England and Paraguay. Daniel and I were going to go to the museum, but it was 4:30 and the guys thought it closed at 5. Since the museum is big and really deserves a couple of hours, Daniel and I headed off to get lunch dinner.
After an hour or so it was starting to get dark, and we decided to walk up the street a ways. Before we came to the club/bar section, we passed a tea house set back from the street through a nicely-lit bamboo grove. I looked at Daniel. “Please?” “You’re kidding.” “Oh come on, it will be an experience.” He sighed. “Whatever.” So in we went. The tea house was much bigger than it looked from the outside, stretching back for three or four rooms. The hostess settled us in one of the middle rooms. We were the only westerners there—unusual for this area of Shanghai, but maybe not so unusual for a tea house, I don’t know. The waiter brought us a menu, and waited while I flipped through it. I asked Daniel what he wanted. “I don’t like tea.” “Well, lets see, they have the fresh fruit shaved ice thingies that we’ve seen other places.” “Alright, get me a strawberry one.” I had decided on oolong tea. I told the waiter what we wanted, but he said they weren’t serving the fresh-fruit shaved ice thingies. I asked about another fresh fruit frozen thingy, in a different section of the menu. He called another server over. After about a five minute discussion between me and the two servers (the servers trying to explain that if we ordered from a certain part of the menu we could get fruit and other snacks from the buffet in the other room) I explained that we were not hungry and could we please just get tea and an ice thingy. “OK.” I wasn’t sure why that was so difficult, but I’m grateful that the servers were so patient with me.
Daniel’s mango ice thingy came, and then my tea, a tea pot and two tiny cups—one tall and slender and the other shorter and wider, sitting on a small wooden box with slits in the top. Another server came by to prepare the tea for me. First, she poured hot water over the teapot. She rinsed the tea leaves in the pot, pouring the tea over the cups again and then pouring it out, then refilling the teapot, and finally pouring tea into the slender cup, setting the wider cup on top, and flipping them with a flourish. She set it in front of me and left. The tea smelled delightful and tasted even better. The atmosphere was also nice with white lanterns hung from the ceiling and Chinese patrons relaxing at the other tables. Daniel was still a little irritated that I’d picked a tea house instead of a bar, but he graciously allowed me to enjoy my tea. He did remark that the dainty little cup was too hoity-toity for his taste.
We decided not to go back down the street and took the subway back to the hotel instead. The next day, we hopped back on the subway to go to the Shanghai Museum. We were wandering through the People’s Park to get from the subway to the museum, and looking for a place to grab some lunch, when we heard “Hello!” Daniel sighed. I turned around and said hello, and we stopped to chat with the two guys. They were college students from Xinjiang Province, way out in China’s northwest, and it was their first time in Shanghai. They asked us where we were going. We told them we were planning to visit the museum, but were looking for some lunch first. They told us they were going to a tea exhibition in a nearby mall; apparently a group from Fujian province comes to Shanghai every 3 years to hold this exhibition, and some of the guys’ friends had recommended it to them. I looked at Daniel. “Do you want another tea experience?” He sighed. “Sure, why not.” We followed the guys, chatting about football and Xinjiang and how life in Shanghai is so busy.
The tea ceremony was delightful. Even Daniel was impressed! We sampled six kinds of tea, a young woman preparing it for us and explaining special features of each tea and the proper etiquette for drinking it, and the guys translating whatever I couldn’t translate for Daniel. All of us really liked the oolong tea. The fruit-flower tea was another favorite, and the red tea with lychee flavor was also really good. The last tea was an “art tea,” not one of the traditional kinds, but really beautiful. It was a large ball, maybe an inch across, and the young woman explained that it was a flower on the inside, covered by jasmine leaves on the outside. She put it into a champagne glass, and poured hot water over it. We watched as the leaves opened, and a blossom emerged, forming a petal bridge in the water with a smaller colored petal in the center. It was beautiful.
A couple of us bought some tea, and then we exchanged email addresses with the guys. They headed off to wander the park some more, with plans to meet up with friends that night to watch the World Cup game between England and Paraguay. Daniel and I were going to go to the museum, but it was 4:30 and the guys thought it closed at 5. Since the museum is big and really deserves a couple of hours, Daniel and I headed off to get lunch dinner.
posted by Mike and Jean Anne at 9:05 PM
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