Ghost Street

 Now it's many weeks after the fact, but I haven't had the chance to mention a few tea adventures during my last week in China. A few days before I left, Kelsey and I traveled to a big eating district--an area of town called Ghost Street (Gui Jie). This name apparently comes from "Ghost fairs" or markets that would be held until wee hours of the morning, and the lanterns that kept the street lit would look spooky, like ghosts. (this would have been a nice post for Halloween, but alas, things come up.) We went to a place called Hua's Restaurant that was sort of made to look like an avenue from the inside and had really good food. Our dinner came out in courses--first, potato pancakes, then a chicken dish with fried rice, and finally a crunchy caramel-covered apple treat. 

But, before all that came a steaming pot of a beautiful, honey-colored jasmine tea. (I've already mentioned a conversion to non-black teas, and a particular fondness for one jasmine tea, so it was a no-brainer when the waitress gave us a choice between jasmine or oolong.) What was particularly interesting to me about this tea was the color--I hadn't expected such a rich gold color from a floral tea (yet more surprises!). And, being one who usually takes sugar with my tea, I was also pleasantly surprised that this tea needed no sweetener; it wasn't the least bit bitter. I suppose this is a trait of lighter teas, but I'll have to investigate it further. It suited the atmosphere, the food, and our conversation--a perfect dinner tea.

Bubble Tea

One thing that sets East Asian tea apart from almost all other tea movements is its push to invoke as many of the senses as possible. Taste and smell are pretty obvious, but those are also ubiquitous. Taiwanese tea-brewers, for example, go one step further; their tea activates your senses of sight and touch, and it’s them we have to thank for the amazingness that is Bubble Tea.

I was first introduced to Bubble Tea, or Boba tea, at Silk Road Café, situated in the Mattin Center of the Johns Hopkins Campus. While I have nothing but good things to say about their mango smoothies, and their Chinese food is supposedly more authentic than say, Panda Express, I cannot defend their lychee-flavored bubble tea. If you aren’t familiar with it (shame on you!), bubble tea consists of either a black tea or fruit tea base and has “bubbles” (tapioca balls) in it. Some stories attribute its creation to a single tea stand in Taiwan where children would be fascinated by actual bubbles in the tea. Before long, tea-brewers had thought up ways to recreate the bubble effect, and one successful variation used tapioca. After your tea is brewed, flavored, and iced, it’s put through a sealing machine; instead of a cup lid for a soda cup (which your drink can still spill through if it tips over), you get a completely sealed cup that you can pierce with a straw. The straw, by the way, is extra wide so that you can consume the tea and the bubbles together. In Asia bubble tea is almost always milk-based and is usually known as “pearl milk tea,” with the tapioca balls called “pearls” in a charming twist. The lychee-flavored variety at Silk Road was not milk-based, and the lychee taste was close enough to the tapioca taste that I felt like I was drinking and eating the same thing. That turned me off the stuff for a while.

Peach milk tea (sans bubbles)
at a place outside the Silk Market
in Beijing.

When I visited my brother for a week one summer in Richmond, he finally convinced me to try a Thai-iced-tea flavor and a Taro flavor. I love Thai iced tea, so that one was immediately a victory. And at the time I had no idea what taro was (an Asian dessert potato), but the drink was a lovely purple color and that was enough for me to want to try it (which I did, and it was awesome).  Since then, I’ve been excited enough about the stuff to search for it everywhere and get it I whenever I can. I even went back to Silk Road to try their Thai-iced-tea-flavor—better than the lychee because it’s milk-based, but still not the good stuff.

I was eager to get this stuff as much as possible when I was in Beijing, and indeed I did. My first was a “green bean” flavor at a place in Houhai, one of the many Beijing bar districts. Despite their green-pea-like appearance, Chinese green beans are actually dessert beans, so don’t be alarmed if you see a picture of a pea pod on an ice cream wrapper or pastry item. Also, they are delicious—one of the best flavors I’ve had.

After some searching for a tea place with bubbles (a lot of places just have bubble-less milk tea), we found a spot called “Color Tea” near Tsinghua University in the Wudaokou district. They soon hooked us with their compelling slogan (“Drink Tea”) and their rewards card (“Buy six drinks, get one free!”), and it became our regular haunt. I tried the Taro—really, really good—and the also impressive hazelnut flavor, but I missed some of the more unusual flavors on the menu, like Irish coffee. Still managed to fill up a whole rewards card though!

Color Tea's clever business strategy--a rewards card.

Cheese tea!

For my last weekend I helped Kelsey fill out her rewards card because she was there for a week after I left, and I decided to try something crazy (go big or go home, right?). Scoping out the menu, I found the craziest thing on it and went with it. It was “Cheese Tea.” The tea itself wasn’t milk-based, but it was remarkably similar to bubble tea. The barista put a few dollops of something that looked like pudding or soft tofu (the cheese!) into the cup before filling it with a chilled black tea, and gave me an extra wide straw with it. The bits of cheese did come out in bubble-like bits through the straw and did taste a bit like pudding. I wasn’t able to finish the cheese (he put quite a bit in, and the flavor takes some getting used to), but I did have all the tea. It really wasn’t bad, and it definitely wasn't as gross as I originally thought it sounded. A good breakfast snack and certainly one that comes with a unique taste, smell, look, and texture―pair it with a toasted bagel, but leave off the cream cheese because this drink's got that department covered!

An newly discovered vice…

It’s official—I’m back in the United States! I’ve loved the past two months and I’ve enjoyed all of my adventures (save one or two), but it’s good to be back home for a bit. China is fantastic, but I must say that the lack of both cheese and granola in the Central Kingdom has been a little depressing. Luckily I’ve had a certain hot, and sometimes cold, liquid in which to drown my sorrows. Seriously, I can’t over-emphasize the prevalence of tea there. I’ll admit that this came with a few drawbacks though. For one, I’ve discovered a new vice of mine.

I had my first taste just in the last few weeks of my trip. I had seen them online back in the US and throughout my time in China, and had previously sort of liked the idea so I didn’t feel too guilty about it. Then I started to see one everywhere I went. As I headed into my final weekend in China, that first buzz still hadn’t worn off. I had to have another. Sure, I can handle one more, I thought. But even after a second dose, I was still greedy. I began inventing reasons—“I’ll never get this chance again,” “The price is unbeatable!” and even “They’re more authentic here.” And I gave in. It’s an addiction. I’m referring, of course, to teapots. Somehow, unbeknownst to me (okay, fine, it was totally “beknownst”), I wound up with three teapots within the last two weeks of my trip.

An edgy red set for my own kitchen...
assuming my roommate lets me.

A lovely blue set for my mom.

Trust me, it’s been no simple feat either. Being a “Laowai” (or “foreigner”) there can easily mark up the price of anything you want to purchase by a few orders of magnitude. The blue set began at 750 yuan and the red set at around 350 yuan, but with some intense haggling (naming an impossibly low price and walking away usually does the trick) I got them for 70 yuan each (about 11 US dollars). The really unique (and supposedly antique) teapot I bought at the Panjiayuan Antique Market started around 450 itself. The vendor didn’t speak too much English but he kept saying something like “Look, old,” presumably as a major selling point. He’d groan dramatically each time I entered a number into his calculator, then sigh heavily, enter his own number, and offer it to me with a flourish. That battle ended at a higher than expected but still reasonable 90 yuan. Guess what was in my carry-on luggage.

My favorite purchase: an antique teapot from the Panjiayuan Antique Market

It may come as a surprise that these three teapots (two of them in whole tea sets) are my three first… ever. But that’s the great thing about tea—you don’t need anything fancy to fully enjoy the finest. However, that’s not to say I won’t be having a cup or several with the help of my recent acquisitions. Come and join :)

Chang'an Opera

One of the attractions of visiting a new country for me is the possibility of experiencing the performance or fine arts culture there. In my experience, each country sort of does it differently, and it’s really interesting to see foreigners and natives alike come together at these things. So when I found out I’d be in China, Beijing no less, I pretty much knew that I had to go see the Peking Opera—whether my friends liked it or not. Luckily, they were all into it, and enough so that we sprung for the best seats in the house! And since we’re in China, where would those seats be but at the center tea table in the front row. Guys, I think we need to bring this to America.

Our wonderful table.

Each tea table seats five people and while the table itself is a bit underwhelming, the experience around the table was well worth it. For a mere 180 yuan a seat (about 28 US dollars), you get a perfect view of the show, an endless supply of a tea (ours was this amazing jasmine tea), and a plate full of delicious cookies and mooncakes. Of course, we happened to get there just about a minute before the show started, so we were the tacky foreigners making our way to the only empty table at the front as the lights dimmed. In fact, I’m pretty sure we were the only foreigners in the theater.

Even besides the tea table seating, Chinese opera is nothing like any Western opera I know of. First, there’s not necessarily much singing. Only two out of seven acts really featured singers though all of them were accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments. The rest of the performance was divided into spoken story-telling and acrobatics. Unexpected, but extremely awesome. (Imagine if you'd gone to see "Madame Butterfly" and gotten "Enter the Dragon" instead!) 

Second, the instrumental accompaniment was a much more visible part of the show. (I use the label “instruments” a bit generously here because I couldn’t recognize any of them apart from labeling them as woodwind or string.) Instead of being hidden in a pit, the small orchestra, if the term even applies, was seated off to the side on the stage. There also didn’t seem to be much of a dress code for them; they wore anything from t-shirts to button-downs—surprising, given their conspicuousness. And besides that, the same musicians didn’t necessarily play the whole time; there were plenty of change-ups, even in the middle of acts. While this was a bit distracting, it made particular instruments stand out more when an especially enthusiastic or skilled musician was up.  

This act was mostly singing.

This act was mostly talking.

The final trait that sets Chinese opera apart is the actual content and the audience reception. None of us even knew the name of the show when we got there, much less any of the characters, but it seemed to be a collection of a few different stories. (Of course, not all operas are like that.) And audience members at the Chang’an Theater were perfectly happy to clap during an act rather than at the end of one if a performer had done something cool. This was fine, but the trouble was we couldn’t always tell if something cool was happening at a given moment. The skill level of acrobatics and intense instrumental or voice solos were easy enough to identify as difficult, but sometimes the whole audience (except our tea table) would break out in applause after a monologue and we’d have no idea why. Our solution? Drink lots of delicious tea and pretend to know what was going on.

Which brings me to the real highlight of the show—the tea. I’m not sure whether it was a consequence of our late arrival or whether there is just a “house” tea in opera theaters, but we were immediately served a pot of steaming jasmine tea without any menu or order. I’ve mentioned my tendency to go with black tea over non-black tea, and this especially applies to floral teas. Their flavors generally seem to end up being too arbitrary or un-tea like for me, and I can’t recall ever having picked a floral tea over another tea genre. Oh, how the times have changed! That jasmine tea was without a doubt the best non-black tea I’ve had and certainly the overall best tea I’ve had in China. Undoubtedly the opera experience played a part in making it memorable, but the tea itself was fantastic on its own. It very much resembled a green tea, making me wonder whether it was just a floral green tea (Do those even exist? I’ll investigate.) rather than an actual jasmine tea, and it went so well with our light snacks that I finished most of my plate before remembering to take a picture. If I had to pick a type of food to eat with this tea, it would definitely be dessert. (It has a natural slight sweetness and an aroma that could make you fall in love— perfect with a plain cheesecake!) And, like all the other teas I’ve had in China, the same set of tea leaves lasted us ages—the entire two hour show—needing only hot water to revive the flavor. Definitely a genre I’ll be exploring more, especially alongside some mooncakes.

(If you want to experience a bit of our operatic adventure, here’s a bit of the show that Kelsey, a fellow traveler, managed to catch on video.)