Tea houses all around the world

Some people like to travel, but some others don’t. That’s why reading can bring them where they want. Here, we will travel all around the world.
When you go somewhere else, you won’t be surprise that a lot of things are different than in our society. In Asia, you probably already know that the greetings are not simple handshakes (we can see this in movies related to Asia). In this way, you won’t be amazed if I tell you that tea traditions are really not the same at all. Today, we will travel all around the world through tea houses.

Drinking tea, for us, is like drinking water or coffee: it’s mostly a beverage. It’s not the same for some countries and this is what we will see.

In China and Nepal, you can find tea rooms and enter there. People meet in these places to talk with others, friends or not, and to enjoy a cup of tea. It’s a bit similar to our bars, where we can laugh as we want, chat and drink beer, but with non-alcoholic drinks (such as tea, you guessed it). It seems that we might have different values too regarding to this. Do you remember when you were dating your girlfriend or boyfriend when you first met? You probably went in restaurants, bars or theaters. But, if you were Chinese, you maybe would have done this in a tea house! Also, we know that there was held a ceremony called “Gongfu tea ceremony” (you probably know the most common variant which is “kung fu”). There also are tea houses, kind of the same as in China, in South Korea. That’s all about this part of the world.

Now, let’s travel to Japan. The tradition shows us that there are also ceremonies held in tea houses that we call Japanese tea ceremony. Now, at the present time, we call these “chashitsu” (literally “tea room”). But, earlier in time, at the Edo period, Japanese were going to an “ochaya” (which means “tea house”) either to find intimacy for couples or entertainment with geisha. But, they don’t use it for this anymore.

In Taiwan, you can find some tea houses, where oolongs will be served (you know, it’s like beers or coffees, some are more popular than others, which become kind of rejected… poor white teas!)

In Vietnam, teahouses are rather places to retreat instead of where people go to chat.

Near us, we all know that tea was implanted in Europe, and we all imagine a British saying “Do you want some tea?” But, they don’t have the same traditions than in Asia, it’s much more a pastime than a tradition. This pastime went through the Commonwealth countries (here, in Canada) and became very popular.

Now, we can find them everywhere with variants such as in France, in a “salon de thé”, where you will find pastries and cupcakes. They did it their own way. There are some of them in Germany, Czech Republic, Latvia, etc. This tradition has been spread all over the world, like snow on the ground in winter.