Tea Party

For those who haven’t picked up one of the 14 Chinese newspapers featuring a few familiar faces enjoying Oolong in a Beijing tea shop, let me get you up to speed. Our boy Bob is not only a civil servant when he isn’t working for the Olympics, but he also owns a tea shop together with his wife. Tian Si Yuan, or Heaven 4 Source (4 being a lucky number), is located a block or two from a busy road in a Beijing suburb. Technically, it is in Beijing, but because the city is so huge, the locals consider the outermost reaches of the subway system to be the suburbs.

Crysty, Janis, my roommate Anna and I, and our local friends Sally and Yonny arrived there one day with a box of Chinese pastries that easily weighed-in at 12 pounds, no joke. The bakery we had visited on our way offered an array of goodies, including a version of the minced-meat-rock-candy pastries (actually they are meatless and called moon cakes) I mentioned having at the Peking Opera. All together, the dense treats tipped the scale towards “need two hands to carry.” We weren’t sure if the custom of giving a host a gift translated to our situation, but fortunately, Bob accepted. As volunteers dining with a superior, we didn’t want to embarrass him with too big a display of generosity, a bit of a quandary in a place where the exchange rate is so in our favor.

It turns out that nothing less than 12 pounds of pastry would have been enough to say thank you. We spent the entire day drinking tea, eating dumplings, learning to write Chinese characters, and getting to see another side of our coworkers at the venue, many of whom joined us. A journalist and photographer from China’s Xinhua News also sat in on the fun. Their interview and photos of us ran the next day and Bob let us know the astounding (to us) number of publications that picked up the story.

More exciting to my stomach than national news coverage though, the dumplings Bob and his wife made from scratch were amazing. One batch featured egg and Chinese green onion, and the other pork. I’ve never had better, and may never again as the next time I eat them, they might partially be made by me. Bob extended us a standing invitation to come to the shop, drink tea, play Mahjong, and learn how to make dumplings ourselves. While I’m not too shabby in the kitchen, I’m not sure if even years of practice could duplicate the deliciousness of the dumplings, enhanced by the care put into making them to honor budding friendships. Bookending the dumpling lunch and dessert of dragon fruit, watermelon, and pastries, Bob’s tea master brought us through the different tea ceremonies for Oolong and a black tea aged 38 years. The procedures for properly preparing both teas are very different, but equally fascinating.

Check out a clip from the Oolong ceremony where Yonny explains the reasons for drinking each tiny cup of tea in three sips, and the rest of the photos in the gallery.

Topics to Write About

• Beijing Olympics

• July 26th, 2008
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