The Lady Tea-rrorist

I mentioned this lady in passing earlier. One of the interesting places we visited in Beijing was the tea house. House is hardly the word to describe the place as it was a huge complex and you can just about get anything that is remotely related to tea inside.

Once inside we were separated into groups of 20 or so and ushered into small rooms with comfortable bamboo chairs.

In walked 2 ladies in traditional cheong sam and one launched into a litany of bad 'Chinglish' extolling the virtues of chinese tea, it's history, the various types of tea and blah, blah, blah. The other lady was busy brewing one type of tea after another.

We were treated to microscopic cups of 4 types of tea. The first was Jasmine tea which tasted divine. The second was 'Oolong' tea; specifically, the 'King of Oolong' tea according to our guide. It tasted great as well. She also brought out some 'oolong' tea that has been preserved for the last 15 years. They looked like dried dinosaur poop to me... heh heh!

I forgot which tea came next but the last was Rose tea which I didn't particularly like. Then the clincher came. She announced the price of each tea presented that day. My hopes of buying a bit of Jasmine tea were dashed that very moment. A small little tin of it (50g) costs RMB 360!!!! That would be RM180! Frankly, I'd rather have my BOH tea or teh tarik anytime!


Unfortunately that was not the end of it. Actually none of us who were in the room were inclined to make any purchases. The sales pitch from the lady terrorist rose to a feverish level as she pleaded, cajoled, threatened, begged..... and she practically blocked us from getting up and leaving the room....until we bought something!!! Talk about aggressive marketing. She was selling as if her life depended on it!

We were all rather uncomfortable and uneasy. We didn't expect to be taken hostage in a tea shop!!! Thankfully, a family in our group decided to buy some tea we saw it as a chance to make a break for it!! We all escaped! We survived! Phew!!! It was a very unpleasant experience indeed. Still, I loved the tea...if only they weren't that exorbitant!