If you want to understand someone, you don't need to know everything about him or her. Sometimes a tiny behavior can betray everything. The same is true with a city - some details hidden in public may be the spirit of the city. Similarly, unique charms and characters of different cities are concentrated, hidden, and permeated in different tea houses.

Tea houses have long been seen in China, and are available in the cities along the Yangtze River, Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces as well as Beijing and Tinajin.

Hangzhou and Chengdu are undoubtedly the best in terms of popularity of their tea houses. It is common to see people cluster along the street drinking tea, chatting or playing mah-jongg. Spending a whole day at a tea house is the unique culture of the two cities; low prices make it more feasible there. Certainly, there are some differences between the tea houses of Hangzhou and Chengdu. Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful scenery; drinking tea in the open air is an agreeable enjoyment.

However, most tea houses in Beijing are expensive, and the burgeoning coffee houses and bars are more attractive to young people. Thus, in Beijing, the tea house has become a symbol of luxurious enjoyment and taste.

Unlike Beijing, tea houses of Shanghai and Guangzhou still keep their nostalgic feelings. In Shanghai's tea houses, old items like old-fashioned telephone and kerosene burners will wrap you in an atmosphere of modem blended with the classic. Families get together in noisy tea houses to enjoy tea, and family happiness is distinctive to Guangzhou.

Thanks to the tea house, because its existence make vagrant people have a place to express their emotion and thoughts, inspiring famous works like "Tea House" and "Trilogy of Tea Men" and making acquaint a city no longer a difficult thing.