The Laoshe Teahouse

Since we are running out of time in Beijing, we took advantage of a Monday night to visit one of the most famous teahouses in Beijing, the Laoshe Teahouse. There are teahouses all over Beijing and China, as drinking tea, tea tasting, and tea ceremonies are extremely popular and common cultural experiences in China.

What makes the Laoshe Teahouse so famous is that it is located right across from the Old City Gate of Tiananmen Square. Also, several famous people, including several famous Americans, such as Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan, have attended performances at the Laoshe Teahouse. The Laoshe Teahouse also has the reputation as putting on the best performance to get a real taste of Beijing culture.

We had two tables at the teahouse. Of course, Team Spring Break could not be separated, so Molly, Jon, Aaron and I all sat together. We were served bottomless green tea and traditional Beijing tea snacks consisting of seeds, egg rolls, and some relatively bland teacakes. As we learned during the performance, there are different teas and tea ceremonies performed for each season. Luckily, the springtime tea is green tea, or in Chinese, lü cha. Green tea is one of my favorites, although all of the tea I have tasted in China has been great! At Laoshe, the tealeaves were put into special teacups with a lid that filtered the tea and kept the water hot. I drank so much tea during the performance, which is probably a good thing because Chinese people believe that tea is great for you help and can prevent and cure all kinds of illnesses.

The show put on was very interesting and included several different kinds of traditional Chinese performances, including singing, traditional instruments, kung fu, Beijing opera, the color-changing mask performance, tea ceremonies, acrobatics, magicians, and Chinese fast talk. It’s honestly hard to say which part of the performance was my favorite because they were all so interesting in unique. Some of the acts even called for audience participation, which was a lot of fun. I’m really glad that we got to go to the teahouse! Now, I will not feel bad if I don’t make it to the Beijing Opera.