After reading in the newspaper that this year’s tea had just newly arrived in the stores, I definitely had to go to Maliandao to buy some. Maliandao is in the southwest of Beijing, just south of Beijing West Railway Station. It’s basically a whole street just lined with tea stores, some bigger ones, but mostly little family-run businesses. Some are right on the streets, others are hidden in little alleys. It’s easiest to go there by taxi. I fyou do decide to take a bus (e.g. bus no. 609 from Beijing West Railway Station) get off at Maliandao Nankou.
When I first got there, I was shocked. I had not come in a while, and all I saw was t0rn down buildings where I thought the little alleyway I used to go to had been. I finally decided to walk into one of the big buildings with countless little tea shops inside. There I was told that quite a bunch of the little tea shops had been torn down in October the year before and moved into the bigger building.
I was still disappointed, but decided I could also buy my tea there. You are always invited to sit down and have a little tea ceremony before you buy in order to try all different types of tea. Nobody rushes you or tries to talk you into buying something. I usually stay for a few hours.
So yesterday, I just sat there, had lots and lots of tea and made friends with the tea sellers, two nice young people. There were other customers who came and went; sometimes there were four or five of us sitting at the little table, sometimes it was just me.
I asked the tea sellers whether they often had customers who did not speak Chinese. They said quite a few. Sometimes they would bring someone who spoke Chinese, other times they would come by themselves, but they usually managed to buy tea somehow. In any case you get to try the tea and can then pick what you liked best. There are other places in Beijing where you can also have a tea ceremony and where people do speak English, like Tenfu Tea Store, but Maliandao is definitely the much more authentic experience.
After about four hours, I decided it was time to leave. I bought some tea cups, two different types of tea and got some more as a gift. Finally, we took some pictures and exchanged cell phone numbers.
As I walked back to the bus, I discovered that only very few places had been torn down, and that the alley I had gone to before with all its little tea shops was still there. I had only walked into the wrong direction first. With Beijing changing so fast these days, I was really relieved to find that Maliandao is one of the few places hardly affected by those changes so far.
