Teahouses and coffee in Shanghai: two ways of sitting down

A Shanghai cafe and a Shanghai teahouse are not two words for the same thing. Each has its regulars and keeps to a different part of the day and the city. Settle that first: the cafe belongs to daytime work and meeting, filling from late morning with people carrying a laptop, a book or another person; the teahouse belongs to time set aside, mostly the second half of the day, where people come to sit, have the pot topped up and finish a sentence properly. Confuse them and you get two disappointments: no table for a laptop in a teahouse, no second infusion in a cafe.

The cafe side: density, purpose, and the reliable hour

Shanghai’s cafes are far denser than in most Chinese cities: several side by side on one street, another around the corner in a residential block. Their purpose is broad: not only a cup but a place to work, meet or wait, where three hours with a laptop is unremarkable and so is coming alone. That makes them a practical answer while travelling: an hour’s sitting needs no whole meal and no explaining one purchase, and a cafe is the most reliable version.

Quality varies enormously: at one price level the range runs from very good to hard to finish, with little relation to how the room looks. Start from what you are doing, not from fame. By form there are four kinds.

The small independent roastery. Own beans, a short menu, few seats, opinions about beans and extraction. Interesting to drink, easy to talk across the bar; scarce seating means it does not suit long occupation.

The chain. Consistent, dense, many seats, open late, findable, no gamble. It solves sitting down now, not one memorable cup; both are real, neither should be asked to be the other.

The cafe inside a bookshop or gallery. A good room, usually quiet, right for reading or resting after an exhibition; traffic follows the venue, weekend afternoons crowd, coffee seldom the point.

The coffee counter in a bakery. Buy and go, a cup with a bun, drunk at the counter; the advantage is opening earlier than most independent places.

The teahouse side, the half visitors miss

The old teahouse looks nothing like a cafe: usually an old building, or a corner of a garden or park; square tables, wooden chairs, dim light, low voices. Tea comes by the pot, with small cups, topped up with hot water whenever it runs low, until you leave. Nothing hurries you, and the shop makes its money from your sitting there, not from turning tables.

Hence the key to the place: a teahouse sells by the pot, not by the cup. One pot divides well between two or five people, the refill is hot water, and a shop pricing by the pot normally charges nothing more. It is built for long sitting, so cafe pace feels oddly slow there, while sitting still is what it is for.

A tourist-area teahouse is another thing: dressed to look old beside a pedestrian street or an attraction, someone at the door, tea priced per person or per set, with snacks and a performance, at several times an ordinary price. Four things tell them apart.

• The unit being priced. By the pot is drinking tea; by the person or the set is watching an arrangement.
• Whether anyone is merely sitting. A real one always has a few tables doing nothing, one pot on them; if every table is photographing and every table a tour group, probably not.
• How long the tea list is. A real list is short, origins and tastes explainable; a list like a set menu, more pictures than words, is selling sets.
• Whether the snacks are cast or lead. Snacks with tea are simple and few. Where food outshines tea, the food is what is being sold.

Teahouses in gardens and temples, and the modern tea room

One kind is worth a journey: the teahouse in a garden or a temple. Tea and setting are one thing there; sitting by the pond or under a covered walk you buy the position, light and quiet, and the tea is often ordinary. The teahouse over the pond in the old city is the extreme case, selling its position rather than its tea, worth paying for if that view is what you want, as the Yu Garden and old city guide describes. Temple teahouses are plainer, with a shorter list, lower prices, often beside vegetarian noodles and snacks.

The other is the modern tea room: concrete, timber, big glass, little ornament, while the brewing stays Chinese, a lidded bowl or a pot, the list divided by origin and type. It answers a specific awkwardness: Chinese tea taken seriously, without an old-style teahouse that does not suit you. The custom is younger, with classes and tastings. The drawback: some have turned contemporary into a reason to charge more, without better tea.

Ordering a pot of Chinese tea

You do not need names; four categories are enough.

Green. Jiangnan’s everyday tea: clean, fresh, a little bean or chestnut, a pale liquor. It does not keep and dislikes boiling water; cooler water and a shorter steep taste better. Right for a first Chinese tea, and with light snacks.

Oolong. Between green and black, varying by oxidation and roasting, the aroma running from floral to roasted. It gives many infusions from one pot, which makes it the best category for sitting long.

Jasmine. A green or white base scented with jasmine, the fragrance from the flower. Good jasmine is scented in the cup, not in the nose. Familiar to northerners, common in Shanghai too.

Pu’er. Raw or ripe, usually pressed into cakes or bricks. Ripe is thick, smooth and aged in taste; raw is cleaner and more forceful. It takes repeated water, keeps well, and is what a teahouse suggests for something different.

Across the infusions the taste moves downward: the first two the aroma, the middle ones the body, the last water with a little sweetness. That is the process, not the tea failing. A refill is hot water, not fresh leaves; a shop pricing by the pot charges nothing more; a different tea means a second pot. The vessels are a lidded bowl, or a pot with small cups.

What to choose, by what you are doing

• A rainy afternoon. The teahouse. A garden teahouse in rain is nearly empty, water sounding off the eaves; cafes fill up.
• Working. A cafe, chain or bookshop kind: a table, a socket, a connection. Not a teahouse: low tables, dim light, nobody working.
• A conversation that needs finishing. The teahouse. Quiet, unhurried, less likely to be broken off halfway.
• A first taste of Chinese tea. The modern tea room or one in a garden: the first easier for questions, the second easier to remember. Not the one with a performance at an attraction.
• A cheap hour. For one hour, one cup in a cafe is most direct. To sit a long while a pot is better value: two people sharing one for an afternoon divides down very low by the hour. The reverse holds: one person ordering a pot for twenty minutes is the most expensive version here.

Hours, who should skip it, and three disappointments

Confirm the hours. Most cafes open late in the morning and run into the evening; teahouses open early enough but close early, many by early evening, so tea at night often means nowhere to go. Exceptions run both ways, holidays and winter shift things: check on the day.

Who it suits: anyone wanting a place where nothing has to be done; anyone interested in tea who will drink it by the pot; anyone avoiding the streets in rain; anyone needing half a day’s work on the road.

Who should skip it: anyone wanting only a good cup to photograph; anyone who will not sit and drinks while walking; anyone treating a teahouse as an attraction with commentary and a show. Nor does everyone like tea: if it reads as bitter, astringent or medicinal, no need to persist.

Three disappointments, said in advance.

The themed cafe that is all decor. A thorough set, uncomfortable chairs, small tables, coffee the last thing anyone thought about: good for ten minutes of photographs, not for sitting.

The teahouse tour. The one you are taken into keeps its point for the price at the end, not the tea. The buying tea and silk guide covers stepping out of that room. If you want tea, find a teahouse with local regulars.

The best cup is rarely in the most famous place. No steady relation holds between reputation and the cup; a long queue may mean a better position, not a better drink. Two blocks off the same street, towards a residential neighbourhood, it is usually cheaper, quieter, easier to sit in.