Teahouses and Tea Customs · FFET10495
Serving tea to elders and guests
Offering tea to elders and guests expresses respect and welcome.
Tea in teahouses, and everyday tea customs such as the lidded bowl and the pouring of tea.
Serving tea, called jingcha or fengcha, means offering tea to elders or guests as an expression of respect or welcome. Banquet accounts describe tea and snacks served after guests take their seats, while fictional scenes show tea presented on a tray and poured separately for guests.
What
Jingcha, also called fengcha, is the offering of tea to elders or guests to express respect or welcome.1,3,4
When
A banquet account places tea and snacks after guests are seated; a separate fictional scene has drinking tea served only after handwashing and rinsing the mouth. These scenes concern hospitality and do not establish when newlywed tea service began.1,2
Where
A banquet account describes the order of hosting at a Manchu banquet: the host offers tobacco before milk tea.1
How
The scenes describe different arrangements: maids bring out tea, or tea is presented to an elder on a tray and poured separately for guests. These descriptions do not set out a single standard sequence for serving tea.2,3
Why
Offering tea to elders expresses respect, while offering it to guests conveys welcome. An ancient passage on household etiquette also describes asking what parents want, offering it respectfully and waiting until they have tasted it before withdrawing; the passage does not specifically concern tea.4,5
Impact and influence
An article published on December 22, 2022 quotes a poem about offering tea instead of wine to a guest on a cold night, presenting tea as a welcome. This modern quotation does not establish the origin of the custom.5