Experiencing a 500-Year-Old Teahouse

We recently settled our "semi"- honey moon in Chengdu. The choice was obvious, since Chengdu is located in Sichuan, which is one of the provinces in China with the longest tea tradition: Sichuan is well-known for its E'meishan Green Tea.

Chengdu's climate can be quite challenging during summer. High temperatures and incredible humidity make you feel the constant urge of sitting down in a shady corner and have an extended relax. Honestly, it is better not to move at all... Luckily Chengdu's countless teahouses offer plenty of opportunities to do so over a cup or five of E'meishan Green Tea.

One of the most famous teahouses in Chengdu is the Wenshuyuan Teahouse just one metro station away from the city's central Tianfu square and that's exactly where we went to get our proper Chengdu teahouse experience. Wenshuyuan Teahouse was found during Tang Dynasty (618-907). However, it has been renovated recently and is thus quite modern and the perfect place for spending a lazy afternoon with more than 35 degrees.

Address: No.66 Wenshuyuan Str. Qing Yang District, Chengdu. Subway: Line 1, Wenshuyuan Station, Exit H

Wenshuyuan Teahouse is divided into an outdoor area and an indoor area. The outdoor area offers seats and tables and hot water in thermos jugs for free. The tea leafs need to be purchased at the entrance and guests can infuse them by themselves. The prices are cheap despite the quite good quality of the leafs, however the water in the thermos jugs is just not suitable for properly infusing green tea in gaiwans and with 35 degrees we were not really prepared for hot, overbrewed and bitter green teas.

So we chose the indoor option, which is slightly more expensive but with 50 RMB p.p. still very reasonable, especially considering the higher quality of tea leafs and the confortably blowing air condition. :)

The inner yard suprises with its prefect combination of "old" and "new" design elements.

Entering the little garden the atmosphere is quiet and peaceful, offering the perfect resort from the bustling city center.

Tea pot: Qing dynasty style Gaiwan

A particularity in Sichuan is that most teahouses offer the tea in traditional Gaiwans instead of small tea cups. This way of tea drinking originated from Qing dynasty.

Tea：Mengding Ganlu, from Ya An, Sichuan

Mengding Ganlu is a local tea that has a little bit of a honey flavor but is not as sweet as black tea. It is more simple. This hand-picked tea is just made of the small buds of camelia sinensis. This is one of the least processed teas with a very subtle flavor and a quite thin liquor. Its neither a green tea nor a black tea. The flavor can be described as simple, slightly fruity, not very complex. In the end it comes down to personal preference, but it would not become my favorite tea, because of its subtle and rather thin, one-dimensional taste. However, that is exactly the right tea for such a hot day and much better to drink under these conditions than a thick and oily black Puer tea. ;)

Drinking from the Gaiwan requires some experience at the beginning.

The tea was served alongside with some local vegetarian dimsum 点心 and cookies, nice!

These iron cans are used inside of the teahouse to keep the hot water. It is possible to adjust the temperature. This way is much more suitable for tea brewing than the big thermos jugs filled with boiling water, that can be found at the outside area, especially when it comes to delicate young teas, that you wont like to brew with 100 °C boiling water.

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Tea: Wenshuyuan Tea House offers at least 2 kinds of seasonal teas nearly every month. All teas are from their tea gardens in the mountains of Ya An. This summer they offer Mengding Ganlu 蒙顶甘露 and 碧潭飘雪 Jasmin Green Tea.

Price: 50 RMB per person for lidded-Cup tea ; 100 RMB per person for Gongfu tea (no time limit）

#Teahouse #Sichuan #Chengdu #Gaiwan