Tea at Maliandao

I teach this morning and then feel some excitement as the class ends. My friend Michael has invited me to Maliandao, the home to Beijing's tea markets, where we'll sample some tea. Malindao is blocks and blocks of tea markets and if you are looking for tea, teapots or tea paraphernalia, this is your heaven.

Michael and I both love zhongguocha (Chinese tea) and so as you can imagine, we are both in heaven.

We first walk around a large indoor tea market. It's the New Year's vacation and everyone must be out of town or at home watching TV, because this place is empty. Seriously, walking around we don't see any other customers--we're the only kids in the candy store.

First, we check out teapots. If it's a good teapot, looking at a teapot is like looking at a whole universe. There's all the time and effort that was put into crafting it. You feel it in your hand when you pick it up and see it in the finish of the clay. And then there are all your future pours.

There are the standard red ones, brown ones, the odd ivory or black ones. I love the teapots with small Chinese characters etched on them. Sometimes it's the whole Heart Sutra. But mostly, I like the simple pots with flowing, classic lines, nothing too avant garde.

As we walk by one shop, we see that the sign is for heicha ("black tea") from Hunan. We've never seen this before and soon Michael, who is very curious, is leading us into the shop to sample some.

Keep in mind, what we know as "black tea" in the West is called "red tea" in China, so this tea seems special. We find out that it is an aged tea similar to pu-er, with fungi introduced into it to give it a special fungi taste. The young girl gives a magnifying glass so we can look at the fungi, and then she pours us some.

The truth--it's nothing special, but it is fun to try something new and practice our Chinese. We both decide it's time to get some real tea. Michael loves Taiwan Tie Guan Yin, a roasted wulong tea, and he's in search of a tea on the mainland that comes close to what he's tasted in Taiwan, and so we find a shop that sells the famous Da Hong Pao (Large Red Robe) wulong tea from Fujian with hopes that it'll come close.

The owner of the shops and her mother, who are from Fujian, pour tea for us and ask us personal questions. The tea is great stuff and I think Michael is in heaven. I love it too, but I'll always be in love with Alishan Gaoshan (High Mountain) wulong from Taiwan.

Having lived in Beijing for about four months now, it is a breath of fresh air to hear their southern accent and their southern sense of humor. Northerners and southerners are quite different in China, and being that my laojia (my "hometown", my first home in this part of the world) is in Taiwan, I am quite enchanted.

It's not always easy living here in China, living your life in another language, in another culture. But there are times that are clear, sublime. Laughing in Chinese and drinking tea, I forget about all my cares. As we leave, the owner's mother tells us to come back soon, that there are lots more teas to try.

We tell her we surely will.