Chinese Tea Ceremony

China is the largest consumer of tea worldwide. The Chinese consume tea at all hours; even elders carried their thermos with hot tea in hand everywhere. In the offices, each employee has their thermos or cup where time boiled water is added to the same tea leaves. When they receive a friend or guest at house, teas is always become an essential drink and is always welcomed.

Chinese culture tea plays important role in their social life

Chinese Tea House

The culture of tea is a very important part of social life in China and for most Asian countries. During Tang dynasty, one of the first books that studies and contain the entire knowledge of tea appeared. It never happened before, collected so much information on tea in the world, up to then had only released mentioned in some texts of Chinese medicine, mythology, and poems. This manuscript known as the classic of tea (Chinese "Cha Jing”) that written by the monk Luyu, collected the most knowledge on cultivation, processing, preparation and consumption. Since then, tea became popular throughout the Chinese territory quickly, penetrating into all aspects of their culture. 

It was also spread to other neighbors countries, such as Japan, and Korea.. where the rituals of tea evolved in parallel with certain aesthetic and philosophical similarities to the Chinese. But today, we will only focus on the culture of tea in China.

Tea in China is traditionally grown in the South, especially along the Yangtze River basin. China offers immense diversity tees depending on the region and its quality. Prices vary widely; from very cheap tees about 3 euros per 50 grams, to others that reach 100 euros for the same amount. Each tea has its own history and culture, its way of preparing it and beneficial health properties. Some are taken after a complicated ceremony to extract better taste, using all equipment of cups, teapots and other special accessories for each movement and placement. All this ritual preparation and tasting tea is an art, and is known in China as tea ceremony (tea preparation mode).

Drink tea as daily habit

Drinking tea has been a daily ritual during the long history of China. People met at the tea houses to talk, play board games and of course, taste the teas and observe their preparation in the tea ceremony. It was a key place for social relations in China. In recent decades, due to the emergence of the Western way of life in big cities, the tea houses have lost splendor before and are increasingly less attractive to new generations, who preferring to attend other venues such as local cafe, Starbucks or any other modern tea shop.

Nevertheless, drinking tea remains a healthy and common custom in China. They do believe that the rich presence of vitamins, antioxidants, trace elements, will help them to maintain a healthy condition.