Beijing Tea Houses and Maliandao Tea Street: Jasmine Traditions

Although not a single tea bush grows in the cold, dry soil around Beijing, the capital has consumed more premium tea per capita for centuries than almost any city in China. Because the groundwater inside the old walled city was historically alkaline and slightly mineral-heavy, Ming and Qing residents discovered that delicate green teas from the south tasted flat when brewed in Beijing water, whereas green tea leaves repeatedly layered and scented with fresh nocturnal jasmine blossoms (molihuacha, or xiangpian) cut right through the mineral water with a bright floral perfume. To this day, ordering a pot of Moli Dabaizhao or Moli Yinhao in a three-piece lidded porcelain bowl (gaiwan) is the quintessential Beijing afternoon ritual.

Maliandao International Tea Street (the wholesale hub)

If you want to buy loose-leaf tea, Yixing purple-clay teapots or Jingdezhen porcelain without tourist markups, skip the souvenir stalls around the palace and ride Subway Line 7 to Wanzi or Daguanying Station (just west of Beijing West Station in Xicheng District). Stretching for 1.5 kilometres along Maliandao Road sits northern China's largest wholesale and retail tea district, housing more than a thousand family-run tea merchants inside multi-storey halls such as Maliandao Tea City and Beijing International Tea City.

Shopping at Maliandao is unhurried and educational: merchants welcome you to sit at their carved wooden tea tables (chaban), rinse miniature cups with boiling water, and brew three or four grades of jasmine, Yunnan aged Pu'er, Fujian Tieguanyin oolong or Wuyi rock tea side by side before you decide whether to buy fifty grams or a whole cake.

Performance teahouses versus quiet garden pavilions

For an evening that recreates the lively vernacular culture of writer Lao She's famous play Teahouse, book a table on the main floor of Laoshe Teahouse (Laoshe Chaguan) at the southwest corner of Qianmen. Over lidded bowls of jasmine tea and plates of palace snacks (see Beijing snacks), a ninety-minute variety show presents Peking Opera excerpts, rapid-fire bamboo clapper storytelling (kuaiban), hand-shadow theatre, acrobatics and long-spout copper kettle pouring. If you prefer quiet contemplation over stage shows, seek out the waterside tea pavilions inside Beihai Park, Prince Gong's Mansion or the former temple courtyards around Donghuamen.