2016 Bonding in Beijing: It's All about Different Kinds of Tea in our Tea Tasting Ceremony

Our second to the last stop during our city tour in Beijing was the Tea Tasting Ceremony. We wanted to skip this though but since I started becoming a tea drinker a couple of months ago, I wanted to know what kinds of tea Beijing has to offer.

Here is the whole group waiting for our "teacher"...

During the tea ceremony - more like a performance - a girl will show you how to properly prepare the different types of teas. For example, you will learn to use hotter water (90 degrees C) to prepare black teas, and only 70-80 degrees for green and flower teas – in so doing, it is believed to best bring out the bitterness of the different type of teas. In the tea ceremony, you will also learn to use two tiny cups, one for smelling and the other for tasting. For those tea lovers the tea ceremony is akin to a fancy wine tasting. There are a wide variety of Chinese teas to taste over there, such as Oolong with ginseng, a Beiing local jasmine tea, Puer tea from the south of China, a black tea with lychee juice and date juice mixed with rose tea, and a fruit tea made with flowers and fruit. SOURCE.

It was a very interesting ceremony, I tell you. Don't skip it! I'm glad we didn't. At least we get to bond with our tour group as well...

Our next stop: Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium!