A red and gold shop sign hung over a few steps leading downwards to the tea house. I stood outside on the concrete sidewalk of the city and studied the entrance for a moment, then stepped down and pushed the door open.
It was darker inside. Bamboo shades toned down the light into muted gold. A few feet away, a man pored over his laptop, looking out of place sitting amidst the rugs, chairs, and lamps of the Orient. It looked like he had been there for hours, and would be there for hours more.
I settled into a corner on a slightly-faded red cushion, back against the wall, a low wooden table to my left. This room was hung with dusty sky-blue or red rugs with silver moons. Music played almost continuously, now a hum of pipes… now a Tibetan chant.
A young man appeared in the doorway, bringing my chosen Nepal black tea. It was scalding. It tasted dark, with just a curious hint of the tangy and metallic. As I sipped, I studied my surroundings with growing excitement, taking in the red, gold, and midnight blue pillow scattered around, the beads suspended from the door entrance. I was surrounded with burnished, dark colors and the sounds and smells of the Orient.
Was I really still in Prague?
It was darker inside. Bamboo shades toned down the light into muted gold. A few feet away, a man pored over his laptop, looking out of place sitting amidst the rugs, chairs, and lamps of the Orient. It looked like he had been there for hours, and would be there for hours more.
I settled into a corner on a slightly-faded red cushion, back against the wall, a low wooden table to my left. This room was hung with dusty sky-blue or red rugs with silver moons. Music played almost continuously, now a hum of pipes… now a Tibetan chant.
A young man appeared in the doorway, bringing my chosen Nepal black tea. It was scalding. It tasted dark, with just a curious hint of the tangy and metallic. As I sipped, I studied my surroundings with growing excitement, taking in the red, gold, and midnight blue pillow scattered around, the beads suspended from the door entrance. I was surrounded with burnished, dark colors and the sounds and smells of the Orient.
Was I really still in Prague?
^ Inside a Prague tea room in New Town
Waves of tea houses inspired by the Far East have taken the Czech Republic by storm. After leaving Communism behind 20 years ago, the country now boasts the highest density of tearooms in the world, with well over 300, and Prague itself has about 60 scattered throughout the city. Here in Prague, it seems Czechs frequent the tea houses morning, afternoon, and evening. In a country that has traditionally been famed for café culture and beer consumption, tea houses have become a ubiquitous Czech institution.
But I kept asking myself, why on Earth are they so popular?
“That’s the favorite question of journalists,” Aleš Juřina says, a wry smile on his face. It’s Monday morning, and the sun is streaming into the largest room in Dobrá Čajovna, a tea house that he, along with a few friends, opened 17 years ago—the first tea house in Prague. Dobrá Čajovna, literally translated, means “good tea,” and fittingly, Juřina has prepared a pot of white tea called “Shooting Needles” for us to sip as we sit, pondering the tea phenomenon.
Czech people like to meet up with each other, traditionally in pubs, Juřina tells me. Sometimes, though, the pubs are too smoky, too loud. Tea houses are a safer haven, an alternative get-together spot, and Dobrá Čajovna is non-smoking. His answers make sense. My usual café spot in the city sports round ashtrays on each table, a lingering smoky scent in the air, and a constant clattering and clanging of customers and waiters.
Looking around here, it’s easy to spot the differences. The orange-peach shade of the walls melds down into bamboo mats. Lamps drop low to the round, glass-topped tables, past ledges where dozens of teapots rest—a bronzed, hodgepodge collection from around the world. I can imagine businessmen drifting in to decompress during their lunch breaks. At the recommendation of my friend Eva, I myself had brought reading here to study the week before. It was a wonderful change of pace, I thought, not least because of the tea house’s contrasting environment from the tourist magnet of Wenceslas Square just outside.
Strangely enough, at first Dobrá Čajovna was not a tea house at all. It began as a simple loose-leaf tea shop, but when customers came and bought 100 grams of tea for 50 crowns—an expensive sum then—they had no idea how to prepare it. “Come,” Juřina recalls saying. “I’ll show you.” Still, though, they wanted to drink the tea on the spot, and 17 years later, drinking areas have nearly taken over the shop. Somewhere along the way, Czechs became very skilled in tea, says Juřina. He hands me a 60-page booklet, the menu of teas. I stare at the 80 or so varieties, including white, gold, and oolong teas from China, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and I am again impressed at the incredible variety of Oriental teas that have found their way to Prague.
When I mention that Oriental feel, Juřina counters that Dobrá Čajovna “is a Czech tea room.” He and his friends drew inspiration for the tea house from their travels in the Orient—he nods at the tea pot, which is from China, and points to the Sri Lanka-inspired chairs—but its eclectic nature brands it a Czech tea house. Besides, Juřina comments, the few attempts to open an English-style tea room in Prague have failed miserably. “I think Czech people are skilled in teas, too much to enjoy the low-quality teas.” His mouth quirks in a tiny smile. “Sorry.”
I finish my bowl of white tea. Its taste is calm and clean, and it’s possibly the best pot of tea I’ve ever had.
Pour, Wait, Pour, Wait
Each tearoom in Prague has its own dash of uniqueness and its own sacred rules. Čajovna ve věži rests on the top floor of a mystical tower in Prague 7. The tower seems to have risen straight out of Arthur’s Camelot, as unexpected among the surrounding buildings as a full-blown Oriental tea culture was to me here in Central Europe.
I’ve brought my friend on this Friday night, and we climb the tower’s spiraling stairs, leveling off on the fourth floor. As the door opens, a wave of warmth washes over us, and one deep breath later, I feel as though I have stepped into another world, a distant place where time passes by, lazy and unhurried. We leave our shoes at the door at the attendant’s faint admonishment. My friend is off-put, but inside a tea house, you follow the tea house’s rules.
Here, it’s dark and dreamy. Scattered wall lamps light the rooms dimly, and strong incense fills the air. A narrow staircase of dark wood leads to a loft where people sit on cushions. One table over, a young man gazes into his girlfriend’s eyes, intently listening to her speak. He’s not alone. The couples are here in full force to take advantage of the romantic atmosphere.
After our brief scramble to choose a tea from the deluge of options, our Taiwanese half-green tea arrives in a plump, clay-brown pot. The attendant, Jan, sets a canister of boiling water down on our table, and inquires whether we know how to prepare the tea once our first pot has run out. He seems dubious, and at our questioning looks, he begins to outline the process.
“First, pour the hot water into your bowls,” he says, pointing at the olive-green bowls that rest on the silver tray. “Wait two minutes. Then, pour it into the pot. Wait again one-and-a-half to two minutes. Then, pour the tea.” After a pause, Jan mentions that we will know from tasting it how to adjust our preparation process the next time around, and then leaves. I get the feeling he has given us the benefit of the doubt.
Slightly lost, we look at each other, pondering his directions. With a shrug, I pour the tea—the only round in which I won’t have to somehow detangle that complex process Jan has just described. Juřina had touched on it, but Jan’s reaction, and the extent of his knowledge, shows just how familiar Czech tea-goers have become with this tea culture.
On our way out, I ask Jan if he can tell me more, posing the same question I had presented Juřina: Why are tea houses so very popular? “It was something totally new, which came together with all this alternative culture,” Jan says later by email. Alternative culture—tea from China, spices from India, yoga, meditation, and the popularity of Tibetan Buddhism—arrived and intermixed in the Czech Republic. Tea houses, in his opinion, managed to include this whole group of interests into their persona. Jan offers me a final word of advice, reminding me not to overlook one more thing that has become tightly connected with tea houses.
“Don’t forget the waterpipes,” he says, and I make a mental note to search them out.
^ "Tea room in the tower." Photo from www.dojo.cz
Where The Young Guns Are
“Well,” I think as I look through a glass door several days later. “I’ve certainly found them.” On the other side, a shelf running along the walls of a small shop is lined with waterpipes. Bright red and blue adorn the undulating bodies alongside the usual silver and brass. Although the door separates the shop from the tea rooms, I can already see this place is a little different.
The scent of spicy masala chai envelops me, daring me not to stop and breathe deeply. This is Siva, an Arabic-inspired tea house in Prague 1. Faded rugs adorn the walls, while loose tea leaves are kept in a long row of glass jars behind the counter. After a few moments, I continue to the basement, making tight circling turns down a stone-encased stairwell.
Then, I gape when the staircase opens up into a remarkable, round-roofed room, enclosed in the same gray stone. Everywhere, teenagers and 20-somethings are grouped together, laughing and talking. The air is hazier, courtesy of the waterpipes on almost every table. Every few moments, someone exhales a dense stream of smoke in measured puffs. I can feel that the atmosphere is younger and edgier.
Loud music plays as I settle down into a faded, olive-green couch and pick up the menu. The music is insistent and heavy on the drums, and the American in me smiles as it changes abruptly into “Rehab,” the Amy Winehouse hit of a couple years ago. While there were some Arabic food offerings in the books upstairs, here, the selection is limited to tea, as well as the obligatory waterpipes.
My gaze settles on three teenagers clustered around a waterpipe in the corner. One boy’s green bandanna pops in the faint light, and the girl sitting across from him sports a blue and purple striped cotton shirt. She unravels the smoking tube that curls, snake-like, around the waterpipe’s body. Watching her, I think back to a conversation I had with a Czech acquaintance, Anna, a 20-year-old Hlinsko resident I know through one of my friends. The very first time I asked Anna about tea houses, she had brought up the waterpipes. For the younger generation, it seems the smoking devices are one of the biggest draws of the tea house. For although I have noticed that many tea-goers are under 30, even by those standards, the people in Siva are young.
My thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of my masala tea—one deep breath upstairs had been enough persuasion to order it—and by the bubbling of a water pipe nearby. It’s the same sound my seven-year-old self made when I blew rebelliously into soda through the straw. Smiling, I sip the tea, enjoying both the milky, flavorful liquid and the warmth of the bowl radiating through my hands. “If you want to ‘switch off’,” Anna had said of tea houses, “it’s one of the best places what I know.” With the heady air and spicy drink lulling me into sleepy contentment, I couldn’t agree more. Czech people of all ages could appreciate these tea houses, these small pockets of otherworldly enchantment. No matter their own particular reasons for going—and I will never know them all—the tea house is a place where everyone can ‘switch off.’
A half hour later, my tea is gone, and I must return to the world of impatient motorists and final exams. Two dozen steps up, and the room encased in stone is left behind. One last glance at the stash of water pipes, and I’m through the double doors, back in Prague.
Time seems to have slowed in the tea house, making for a startling return to the noises and the pace of the outside. The door closes behind me, and I stand for a moment, unwilling to lose the feeling of tranquility just yet. The rain and wind whirl playfully in my face, and as I turn and begin to walk, I am swept along, unfailingly, back into the pulse of the city.
Čajovna U Kostela – located in a half-basement, you can choose cushions or chairs in this Oriental retreat. Strossmayerovo náměstí 9, Prague 7
Dobrá Čajovna – the first tea house to open in Prague, it has served as a model for many others. Reading lights above each table in the left-hand room make it a perfect spot for quiet study. Václavské Náměstí 14, Prague 1, New Town
Čajovna ve věži – its location alone, at the top of a tower, makes this dreamy tea house perfect for deep conversations or romantic dates. Na výšinách 1 / Korunovační, Prague 7
Siva – with its large selection of waterpipes (hookahs), it is a favorite for young tea-goers or those looking for an energetic hideaway. Masná 8, Prague 1, Old Town
Amana – in a basement not far off the Vltava, it has a vast tea selection, lively atmosphere, and an enticing place to curl up for a few hours. Záhořanského 6, Prague 2
U Zeleného čaje – this cozy, but updated, spot not far from the castle offers its own tea creations as well as light snacks. Nerudova 19, Prague 1, Malá Strana
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