Tea House - Asia

Asia

See also: Chinese tea culture, Hong Kong tea culture, Taiwanese tea culture, Chashitsu, and Ochaya

In China, a tea house (茶館, cháguăn or 茶屋, cháwū) is traditionally similar to the American cafe, albeit centered around tea rather than coffee. People gather at tea houses to chat, socialize, and enjoy tea, and young people often meet at tea houses for dates. The Guangdong (Cantonese) style tea house is particularly famous outside of China. These tea houses, called chálou (茶樓) serve dim sum (點心), and these small plates of food are enjoyed alongside tea.

In Japanese tradition a tea house can refer to a structure designed for holding Japanese tea ceremonies. This structure and specifically the room in it where the tea ceremony takes place is called chashitsu (茶室?, literally "tea room"). The architectural space called chashitsu was created for aesthetic and intellectual fulfillment.

In Japan during the Edo period, the term "tea house" could also refer to a place of entertainment with geisha or as a place where couples seeking privacy could go. In this case the establishment was referred to as an ochaya (お茶屋?), which literally meant "tea house". However, these establishments did not mainly serve tea, except incidentally, and were instead dedicated to geisha entertainment or to providing discreet rooms for visitors. This usage, however, is now out of date. Contemporary Japanese go to modern tearooms called kissaten on main streets to drink black or green tea as well as coffee.

In Central Asia the term tea house could refer to Shayhana in Kazakh, Chaykhana in Kyrgyz and Choyxona in Uzbek, which literally means a tea room. In Tajikistan. The largest tea houses are Orient Tea house or Chinese Tea house, Orom Tea house in (Isfara) town. On the 15th anniversary of Independence in Tajikistan, the people of Isfara town presented Isfara Tea house to Kulyab city for its 2700th anniversary on September 2006. Tea houses are present in other parts of Central Asia, notably in Iran and also Turkey. Such tea houses may be referred to, in Persian, as Chay-Khaneh, or in Turkish, çayhane - literally, the "house of tea." These tea houses usually serve several beverages in addition to tea.

In Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt, establishments that serve tea, coffee and tisanes like karkade are referred to as ahwa or maqha (Arabic: مقهى‎) and are more commonly translated into English as coffeehouse.