2 days ago
In the Sichuan capital, renewed heritage appreciation is helping ancient teahouses go viral
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
It's barely 9am when I slide into a bamboo armchair at Heming Tea House in Chengdu's sprawling People's Park. This century-old stalwart is one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity that I called home until I was nine. While I was growing up here, in one of China's oldest tea-growing areas, many weekends were spent in an open-air teahouse like this one.
While adults played games of mahjong and the kids ran riot, roving hawkers carrying heavy baskets balanced on bamboo shoulder poles would come round selling snacks. The most famous of these is dan dan mian (shoulder pole noodles), where a nest of cold noodles is placed on a hot and tongue-numbing mala chilli oil base, topped with spring onion and minced meat, then mixed and greedily devoured.
But as I sip my grassy mao feng green tea, I'm struck by how unusually busy it is. Hordes of tourists with phones in video mode stream past the chairs crammed under teak pavilions and beige parasols. Most seats already filled by pensioners putting the world to rights or families cracking into toasted sunflower seeds. Heming Tea House has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral. Photograph by Getty Images, Plej92
A group of photography students is playing cards next to me, their backs turned on a pile of cameras carelessly stacked on a spare chair. I lean over and ask why there are so many people here on a weekday. One of the students looks up and tells me Heming has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral.
Later, I head to Lao Chuzi Sichuan Restaurant for a family gathering. The low-key restaurant and teahouse on the top floor of a four-storey office block isn't particularly well known, but my uncle picked it because it's a favourite in his neighbourhood, and it serves a stellar line-up of Sichuan dishes, including garlic-infused fish, fragrant aubergine and thin slices of poached pork served with a drizzle of sesame-laced chilli sauce.
I bring up the wang hong phenomenon. 'There are wang hong places everywhere now and business is booming,' my uncle tells me, noting a similarly popular place down the road: 11th Street. Later, we stroll over to take a look. Amid the low-rise residential blocks is a row of a dozen or so two-storey buildings, their exposed wooden beams and pitched roofs incongruous with the more modern surroundings. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto the street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating.
'These all used to be teahouses,' says my uncle, who's lived in the neighbourhood for over 30 years and watched the buildings' metamorphosis into buzzy restaurants. Before that, this ramshackle collective was made up of homes built during the tumultuous period after the Qing dynasty ended in 1912 and before the People's Republic of China was established in 1949.
Since the 1990s, billions of pounds of investment have poured into Chengdu from the central government and private developers, triggering a building boom that's given large swathes of the city a complete facelift. These buildings have somehow escaped the demolitions that razed their neighbours, and ironically their rundown appearance may now become their saving grace as people seek to hold on to the last vestiges of an old Chengdu. Head chef, Steven Tan, stands proudly at Mi Xun Teahouse at The Temple House hotel. Before it was a Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant, Mi Xun started with tea and snacks until more and more people requested the food. Heming Tea House is a century-old stalwart, and one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity of Chengdu. Photograph by Alamy, Lejeanvre Philippe
In recent years, there's been a concerted effort to protect and redevelop old buildings with heritage value — the type that don't hold historical significance, like temples and monuments, but still have a place in the city's history. One of the more sensitively done projects is the downtown Taikoo Li shopping and entertainment complex, where a handful of 19th-century homes surrounding Daci Temple were restored and given a new lease of life a decade ago. Mi Xun Teahouse, the Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant at The Temple House hotel, occupies one of these. The grey brick walls of this single-storey building — set aside from the modern tower that makes up the main hotel — hide a tranquil courtyard that transforms into a wood-panelled al fresco dining spot in fine weather, a single tree providing dappled shade. It's here that I meet executive chef Tony Xu, who tells me that in the beginning Mi Xun was just supposed to be a teahouse.
'Because Chengdu is very big on tea, we started with tea and some snacks,' he says, explaining that teahouses almost always serve some kind of food. 'But more and more people were requesting our food, so we added more dishes to the menu. And now people mainly come for the food.'
Tony takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, and so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices and no garlic or onion. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as a vegan dan dan mian, made with an egg-free noodle of his own creation, containing wheat and cake flour for extra bite and spinach juice for colour; and mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Executive chef at Mi Xun Teahouse, Tony Xu takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Photograph by Jiang Xiaodan
For the tea connoisseur, Mi Xun also offers a selection of premium brews such as da hong pao from Fujian province, and Pu'er from Yunnan, served in a pared-down version of the traditional gongfu tea-preparation ritual. Instead of an elaborate ceremony where a tea master washes the leaves, warms the tiny cups and prepares the tea, some of these stages are done behind the scenes. All the guests need do is steep the tea according to their preference. Attention is still paid to the drinkware — green tea always served in a glass pot, for example, while red tea comes in white ceramic. 'We've simplified things so everyone can enjoy the experience and take joy from tasting tea,' says teahouse manager Yvonne Du.
Tea is cheap and widely available in Chengdu — meaning it's enjoyed by a wide cross-section of society. 'You'll find teahouses all over China,' explains Susan Yin, a guide at food tour company Lost Plate. 'In Chengdu, tea is for everyone. It doesn't matter what your background is, or whether you're rich or poor.'
Yin is my guide for a food tour just east of the downtown area. The company's co-founder, Ruixi Hu, lives in Chengdu and designed the itinerary around some of her favourite haunts. As part of the tour, we hop into a cramped tuk-tuk that whizzes us around the neighbourhood. At one stop, we try dan hong gao, fluffy pancakes stuffed with a mix of sesame, crushed peanuts and sugar. At another, we tuck into enormous bowls of freshly made pork wontons, some in plain broth and some swimming in fragrant chilli oil. We also stop at casual noodle shop Tang Dan Dan Tian Shui Mian, visited by the late US chef Anthony Bourdain for his CNN show Parts Unknown, and slurp through bowls of tian shui mian ('sweet water noodles') — a thick, springy, hand-cut variety that comes slicked in a sweet, peanut and sesame paste sauce. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto 11th Street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating.
It's only when we sit down at a restaurant serving jiang hu cuisine — a rough-and-ready style of cooking that has its origins in the street markets of Sichuan, a province that's big on flavour intensity — that Yin and I finally get some time to chat.
As we liberate chunks of dry-fried chicken from underneath piles of chillies, and fish out tender slivers of beef from a spicy broth, Yin tells me she settled in Chengdu over a decade ago for two very simple reasons: the food and the lifestyle. Taking a sip of buckwheat tea, she adds: 'Chengdu is a laid-back city, and the best way to experience this is in a teahouse.' Audley has a 15-day tour of China, which includes two nights in Chengdu, as well as time in Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Yangshuo and Shanghai. From £5,495 per person, including flights, transfers, B&B accommodation and excursions, such as the Lost Plate food tour.
This story was created with the support of Audley. Published in the July/August 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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