There are square tables, long tables, benches and short stools in the house, and three or two tea guests sit inside, chatting about the sky, teasing the clams, and many people's impressions of the tea house are derived from the "Tea House" created by Lao She more than 60 years ago.
Today, in many places, the traditional tea house is quietly changing, in mid-February 2019, Hong Kong's nearly 100-year-old LianXiang Building announced that it would be closed for rectification at the end of the month, and when it will reopen again is still unknown. The sudden announcement of the closure of the century-old famous shop does this mean that the traditional tea house tea house is still invincible to the trend of the times after all?
For many natives of Guangdong, the signboard of Hong Kong's Lotus House involves memories of morning tea.
Lian Xiang Lou, which began in 1889 as a cake and crispy restaurant in Xiguan, Guangzhou, initially only made morning tea, because of good business, and later also did evening markets and private seats, in 1926, Lian Xiang Lou opened a branch in Central, Hong Kong. As the only one in Hong Kong to keep a trolley to sell dim sum,
The biggest feature of LianxiangLou is "grab", when the cart is full of freshly baked refreshments, a group of people will flock to it, and if they can't grab it, they will admit their fate, make a lot of noise, mess, and full of fireworks.
However, from the end of February 2019, this old brand, which can be called the classic paradigm of Guangdong's old tea house, will also enter history, and it is still unknown what kind of posture it will return in the future.
Speaking of which, Guangdong's morning tea and tea houses have become a part of local people's lives.
In modern times, tea houses in Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other cities have a lot in common, people regard tea houses as markets, living rooms, offices, leisure places, and in this sense, we can regard them all as "Chinese tea houses". But in different places, the difference between tea houses is also very obvious.
"Chai rice oil salt sauce vinegar tea", "tea" occupies a place in the people's livelihood. Drinking tea was originally a hobby that arose from the lofty mountains of the southwest,
On the way to the unification of the Six Kingdoms by the Qin Dynasty, when Qin Shi Huang conquered the Bashu region together, tea was also brought to the Guanzhong region, and after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, tea was also followed to Jiangnan. Gangnam is a good place to grow tea trees, and tea soon spread from here.
Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, Hangzhou has had many famous tea gardens and tea houses, and to this day, the city still retains an exquisite tea culture. According to data, as of May 2017, the number of tea houses in the Hangzhou market reached more than 2,000. Because Hangzhou people love to drink clear tea, hangzhou tea houses generally do not sell other snacks in addition to clear tea.
Yangzhou, which was once developed with the excavation of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, is a transportation hub and distribution center for goods from north to south, and the canal is often the only choice for opening tea houses, so there are many tea houses in Yangzhou.
Yangzhou is a delicate place, people manage to eat breakfast tea house called "tea house", and the tea house in addition to tea, there are a variety of exquisite snacks.
Crab yellow soup buns
Three-diced buns
Shrimp seed ravioli
Crab yellow soup buns, three-diced buns, shrimp seed ravioli... Yangzhou is simply a paradise on earth!
In the Jiangnan area, the popularity of tea houses is very high, but there is no city in the country where people have such a close connection between their daily lives and tea houses as Chengdu. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 500 streets and alleys in Chengdu, and there were more than 400 teahouses.
By the 1930s, there were nearly 600 tea houses in Chengdu, with as many as 120,000 tea customers every day. Even today, Chengdu's teahouses are probably the most numerous among Chinese cities. Sitting idly in the teahouse has become an integral part of their daily lives.
Although the tea houses in many cities are still in the market, for those who run tea houses, the old tea houses want to have long-term vitality, completely in accordance with the traditional method, relying solely on the neighborhood business, it is difficult to maintain, must attract more new generations.
This is because today's teahouses are not only competing with their peers, but also with cafes, bars, Internet cafes, board games, and even social software on mobile phones.
The results of a study show that tea consumers under the age of 19 account for only 9% of the total number of tea consumers in China, 21% of 20-39 years old, 32% of 40-59 years old, and 38% of 60 years old. Overall, young people don't seem to be so fond of tea anymore. How to adapt to the changes of the times and the changes of young audiences is a survival problem faced by all long-established tea houses.
In the current catering market, "scene experience" is undoubtedly one of the hottest words. Unlike the endless internet celebrity cafes and milk tea shops in major cities, people's impression of tea houses still seems to be traditional and old-fashioned, dull and heavy. It is precisely because of this that we rarely see the figure of Chinese tea houses in the bustling business circles of the city, but there are not a few new tea shops that have adjusted their marketing ideas.
What is a new tea drink? Simply put, it is a combination of Western-style original tea and innovative flavor tea. In terms of marketing, the new tea shop pays more attention to creating a consumption scene, which introduces the concept of "third space" advocated by Starbucks founder Schultz, that is, a composite consumption scene with a strong sense of life and social attributes.
By opening up new consumption scenarios, new tea drinks have promoted the growth of tea consumption and attracted more young people, according to relevant survey reports, the number of people under 30 years old has reached 71%.
The decline of traditional tea houses is a pity, but there is no need to feel regret, because the traditional tea houses that have lasted for a hundred years must have the ability to become the new fashion of young people, and it is just waiting for smart operators.