Morning tea, afternoon tea and evening tea are what we usually mean by breakfast, lunch and dinner
Exploring the origin of morning tea in Guangzhou
During the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi, there was a The restaurant is called "Yiliguan". Its facilities are very simple, with wooden tables and benches. It serves pastries. There is a wooden sign hanging on the opening with the word "tea party" written on it. It provides guests with a place to rest, talk and eat. Later, "Tea House" appeared. "Ju" means "hidden", which means hiding. It was also intended to provide a good place for leisure people to spend time. Later, when the scale became larger, it was renamed a tea house. At that time, people who ran teahouses in Foshan bought land to build several-story teahouses, and then used the entire building to operate large teahouses. There were more and more large teahouses. After that, Cantonese people began to have the habit of going to teahouses. There is another restaurant called "Er Li Guan" that also serves the same snacks. The difference lies in the price and equipment. The tea supplies in the tea house cost three to six cents, while the tea supplies in Er Li Guan only cost two cents. There is a huge difference, which is a full ten cents. six times. Some old-fashioned teahouses are divided into different levels. The ones upstairs are more expensive than those downstairs because they have air conditioning (or electric fans) and are more spacious.
Tea House in Ancient Guangzhou
The predecessor of Guangzhou Tea House is a restaurant, which can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty. , a slanted curtain outside the small east gate, pedestrians recognize it as an old restaurant 200 years ago. "The Jinjiang Restaurant on the East Embankment is also ancient. The couplet goes: "There are many wine marks on the lapel, and the jade flute is played at the end of the 24th Bridge. The clouds in the center of the river are heavy, and thousands of sails are collected in golden bottles. ”
During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the teahouse opened in Guangzhou was first called “Ju”, or “Shangchaju”. For example, Fulai Ju at the entrance of Chenghuang Temple on Huai Road, Lu Yu Ju at Taiping Road, Mao Zhen Ju at Second Fu, Yong An Ju at San Fu, Wu Liu Ju at Wu Fu, and Tao Tao Ju at Shi Fu. During the reign of Emperor Guangxu, "Ju" was renamed "Lou" and was called "Shangcha House". The strange thing is that the emergence of teahouses with the name "Ru" has its own history: in the first year of Guangxu, there was Chen Huiru, who pioneered "Huiru House" in Huai. Later, Tan Xinyi, Tan Qingbo, Zhao Jiansheng and others successively opened many "Ru" teahouses together, such as Duoru Tower on Zhuji Road, Dongru Tower in Triangle City, Sanru Tower on Haizhu Road, and Nanru Restaurant on Huifu Road. Buildings, Furu Building on Maima Street, Ruiru Building on Wuxianmen in Changdi, Tianru Building on Henan Qiankou, Baoru Building on Yide Road, Jiuru Building on Tongxing Street, etc.
Since it is a building, the underground store is used to sell pastries. There is a hall and elegant seats in the middle of the upstairs, and quiet suites are located around it. The price of tea is also higher, so the proverb goes: "If you have money, you go upstairs, but if you don't have money, you squat downstairs."
The "home" of Taotaoju Why is it still used today instead of changing its name to "Lou"? It's because of its elegance. Most Cantonese opera artists live in Xiguan. Bai Jurong and Xue Juexian often come to Taotaoju to drink tea. Cultural celebrities also come here to gather. Lu Xun, Xu Guangping and Ba Jin are guests of Taotaoju
After liberation, the reform The development of teahouses
This is a time for teahouses to make a leap forward.
The tea house has developed into a modern restaurant and has reached a higher level. Contemporary restaurants are willing to spend a lot of money on decoration, including single rooms, private dining rooms, Western style, Japanese style, Southeast Asian style, all kinds of furnishings, and various teahouses, so that citizens of different classes can have more fun. choice. There are both morning tea and afternoon tea. As for night tea, the styles are more diverse, including stews and seafood.
As for the business model, there have been many changes.
There are chain operations such as Guangzhou Restaurant, Nanhai City, and Shiweitian, a series of seafood cities such as Nanhai Fishing Village, Jiangnan Fishing Village, and high-end operations such as Dunhuang.
The development of Guangzhou teahouses has made a qualitative leap, and the business model has become more diversified, from the expansion of traditional time-honored brands, to chain operations, to the development of high-end teahouses. The development of teahouses in Guangzhou has reached a new level
The current situation of morning tea in Guangzhou
“Eating in Guangzhou” is true at all. The addition of various Western restaurants, such as Monte Carlo, and fast food restaurants, such as M's (McDonald's), KFC (Kentucky), etc., has put pressure on the traditional Guangzhou teahouse. For example, M Ji and KFC. Two world-famous fast food restaurants have given Guangzhou teahouses a warning. They have attracted children and the younger generation.
The teahouse has become a place only for the elderly.
Guangzhou is an old city, not only because it has a history of more than a thousand years, but also because there are many old people scattered in the teahouses in the streets and alleys. These idle old people continue the habit of hundreds of years. They walk to the teahouse early in the morning, order a pot of tea and two snacks, chat or read newspapers, and spend most of the morning leisurely. Dismiss. Guangzhou's morning tea is particularly leisurely because of these old people. Even though there are many businessmen in the tea house who spend a lot of money and come and go in a hurry, it feels like they are just passers-by after all. But for the elderly, morning tea is their life. The venue can be changed, but life is nothing else.
In this regard, Mr. Sun, a Taiwanese businessman who has been traveling in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other places for many years, also agreed: "More than 70% of the customers in Hong Kong restaurants are old men and women over 60 years old, and the rest The next 30% are men over 40 years old, and there are no office workers in their 20s. It can be seen that morning tea on weekdays is indeed a thing for idle old people, and six out of ten people here have one in their hands. Writing a newspaper of the day is considered a way of life for Hong Kong people.”
They are both businessmen, and businessmen in Guangzhou may be influenced by the old people in Guangzhou, so the pace of drinking morning tea is also peaceful and slow. , it is common to sit for several hours with nothing to do. Moreover, Guangzhou’s morning tea is worthy of its name. There are teahouses opening at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. The elderly people sleep little anyway and get up early, so they rush to the teahouse before dawn. It is precisely because they get up early that even if the businessmen arrive late, they can still enjoy the morning tea. In Shenzhen without the elderly, morning tea is not early at all. Let alone 4 or 5 o'clock, even 7 or 8 o'clock is too early for Shenzhen people. In such a place with such a rich nightlife, Shenzhen people can get up early to have morning tea. Definitely hard to make a pair. After 10 o'clock is the ideal time for Shenzhen people to have morning tea. Since the time before noon is too short, many Shenzhen people simply have morning tea and lunch together, which makes the concepts of morning tea and afternoon tea in Shenzhen unclear.
In terms of business hours, Master Lin Yuming, the Chinese food chef of Grand Skylight Hotel, told reporters: "Guangzhou people pay attention to three tea and two meals. Guangzhou people go to sea earlier and get rich earlier. There are many things in a day." It is leisure time, so morning tea, afternoon tea and night tea are all very popular. Morning tea in Guangzhou usually opens at 4 o'clock in the morning, and night tea does not close until 12 o'clock in the middle of the night. Some even do not close until 1-2 o'clock in the morning the next day. , some are open all night. Generally speaking, the morning tea market is the most prosperous, and there are often many people drinking night tea from early morning to 11 a.m., especially in summer, many Cantonese people regard night tea as a way to relax in the summer. One way."
Price
Guangzhou people are very particular about "eating without getting tired of food", but the price of dim sum is high and low, suitable for both rich and poor. The elderly can order a cup or two of these at affordable prices, and wealthy businessmen can naturally order some shark fins to rinse their mouths with.
Du Guangshun, the Chinese food department manager of Grand Skylight Hotel who is familiar with Guangdong culture, also said: "Guangzhou is an old city, and eating morning tea is a lifestyle accumulated over hundreds of years, and the price is cheaper than in Shenzhen. Compared with Guangzhou In comparison, Shenzhen's dim sum is of high quality, and the environment for having morning tea is good, which is more suitable for business customers to discuss business. However, because Guangzhou's morning tea is mainly for family customers, the food is not as elegant as Shenzhen's, and the environment does not necessarily have to be star-rated. , as long as the family has a good time.”
The dominance of Guangzhou teahouses still exists, after all, it has historical origins. At present, Guangzhou's teahouses are facing various obstacles, constantly innovating and improving their business methods, so that Guangzhou's teahouses can further develop. Although there is a period of silence due to the impact of Western restaurants, fast food restaurants, etc., Guangzhou teahouses are recovering and waking up.
Five reasons to drink morning tea
Reason 1: Now that you have entered this country, you should follow this custom. If you don’t drink morning tea in Guangdong, wouldn’t you be a Lingnan native in vain?
Reason 2: Sitting around a table with relatives and friends, a pot of tea and a few beautiful snacks can enhance feelings.
Reason 3: Having a hearty breakfast is a useful reward for yourself who is busy every day.
Reason 4: If the whole family has morning tea, the per capita consumption is only 20 to 30 yuan. You can also have brunch and lunch together, which is economical and enjoyable.
Reason 5: There are many delicious snacks to enjoy.
Five reasons not to drink morning tea
Reason 1: I don’t have time from Monday to Friday, I have to go to work; I don’t have time on weekends, I have to sleep.
Reason 2: I don’t even eat breakfast, why do I have morning tea?
Reason 3: It’s too expensive. If you turn it into a food stall, you can consider it.
Reason 4: The reason is very simple, no one treats us.
Reason 5: Morning tea? What is morning tea?
Morning tea culture in Guangzhou
Drinking morning tea is a unique tea-drinking custom of Guangdong people. After getting up in the morning, before starting the day's work and business, a cup of famous tea and delicious snacks (breakfast), two pieces, not only solves the problem of breakfast, but also is a wonderful enjoyment.
Refreshments are tea and snacks. Teas include black tea, green tea, oolong tea, scented tea, Yuanbao tea, etc., and there are even more types of snacks. The most common ones are various steamed buns, such as barbecued pork buns, crystal buns, steamed pork buns, shrimp steamed buns, and crab meat buns. Xiao Long Bao, as well as other types of dry steamed siomai, various crispy cakes, as well as chicken porridge, beef porridge, fish porridge, chee cheong fun, shrimp powder, wontons, etc.
Drinking tea is an indispensable part of Cantonese life. Here, nervous people begin to relax and talk leisurely about life, old friends, and stories; here, people relax and unwind in the light fragrance of tea, relaxing their mood. People brew a pot of good tea and order some delicious snacks in the teahouse. Some drink it by themselves, and some chat with their friends for a while. Isn't it leisurely?
Teahouses are also an important place for people to make a living. All kinds of people were talking about stocks, the property market, Japanese electrical appliances, and American cars in the teahouse. Here, people exchange various economic and commodity information. If you don't have the ability to "make" teahouses, your chances of making a fortune will be much less. In the business world, if you don't enter a teahouse, you won't be able to integrate into Guangdong's business society. The leisurely and comfortable teahouse has become a place for business negotiations, making the teahouse no longer just a quiet place for people to chat and pass the time. There is a couplet in the "Miao Qixiang" teahouse in Guangzhou in the old days:
Busy for fame, busy for profit, take a break from the busy schedule to have a cup of tea;
Working hard, working hard, and suffering. Have fun, bring a jug of wine.
This is exactly the psychological portrayal of people drinking tea in a teahouse.
Of course, teahouses are not just for morning tea. There are always customers for tea from morning to night. Most teahouses open at around 5 o'clock in the morning to welcome customers and don't close until midnight. "Three teas and two meals in a row".
In Guangdong, there is "etiquette" for drinking tea. When the waiter pours tea, the guest usually taps the table with his index and middle fingers to express his gratitude. Legend has it that this custom originated from Emperor Qianlong's visit to the south of the Yangtze River and his patrol incognito. Once, the emperor pretending to be a servant poured tea for his entourage pretending to be his master. The entourage was grateful and frightened. He should have knelt down to worship, but he was afraid that his royal identity would be exposed, so he had an idea and lightly clasped the table with his two fingers. The kowtow ceremony has been passed down to this day.
In a teahouse, when a guest needs to refill the water, he only needs to open the lid of the pot and the waiter will come. As for the origin of this etiquette, it is said that in the past, a wealthy businessman went to a tea house to drink tea and asked the waiter to add water to him. As soon as the waiter opened the lid of the pot, he yelled "ho ho" and claimed that there was a thrush worth a thousand gold in the pot. The waiter let him go, and the restaurant must compensate him. The boss had no choice but to stipulate from now on that tea guests who want to add water must open the lid of the pot themselves to prevent fraud. Today, this habitual action has become a signal for tea drinkers to add water without having to call the waiter.
As for the types of morning tea snacks in Guangzhou, you can browse on the following webpage