Drinking

Don’t drink the water! Seriously.

China’s obsession with drinking tea is partly due to its lack of clean drinking water. Nowhere in the Middle Kingdom does anyone drink water directly from the tap. Boiled water is the standard, and while you’re at it you might as well add some tea leaves.

The Chinese actually add many “treasures” to a cup of tea including dried fruits, flowers, and other herbs. The 八宝茶 ba bao cha, literally “eight treasure” tea, has eight ingredients including tea leaves, sugar crystals, flowers, berries, and various forms of mystery fungus. People from every region boast their tea is the best, but by pure economics, the Pu’er tea must be the best because people pay top dollar for fresh and aged varieties at auction. By taste, the Hangzhou Longjin tea is the national favorite.

Foreign firms such as Coke, Pepsi, and Danone have introduced modern bottling techniques to China, so these days you can find every variety of tea, soft drink, fruit juice, milk and yogurt in bottles, cans, boxes, and pouches on the supermarket shelves. Supposedly the Chinese don’t like 100% juice, so the bottling companies get away with peddling 80% sugar water with 20% juice.

For much of China’s history, the alcoholic beverage of choice was 黄酒 huang jiu, and 白酒 bai jiu, which are yellow and white distilled liquors. Around 100 proof, they are very potent. Older men, especially in the rural areas, prefer these drinks. The taste and smell is very earthy and most foreigners consider these drinks as palatable as licking someone’s armpit on a sweaty day.

Beer is enjoyed all across China with lunch and dinner, but unlike the West where bars boast “Coldest beer in town,” Chinese restaurants and bars might boast “Lukewarmest beer in town.” Seriously, beer is served at room temperature. Tsingtao remains the most popular national brand, but each region has its own local favorite. The alcohol content at 3% is much lower than the 5%
standard found in the West, so despite the large quantities of beer being consumed, you won’t see too many drunks. Go to Japan if you like watching drunken people stumbling down the sidewalk.

Western style red wine is becoming increasingly popular in China, especially among yuppies. Western style liquor is available in China but it is largely a novelty drink. There is much counterfeiting of wine and liquor, so be careful. A genuine bottle of imported wine or liquor should have the normal label and an additional import sticker on it. Also, don’t be duped by quality claims. A well-known French vintner fills its cheap wine bottles and its expensive bottles with the same wine. Most drinkers have palates too unsophisticated to notice the difference.
My friend Diego who runs restaurants in Yunnan realized the Chinese wine-drinking consumer wants to drink expensive wine, so he raised his prices from 200 yuan a bottle to 800 yuan for the same bottle and his sales quadrupled.

Tales of drinking alcohol at Chinese banquets are legendary. These days the older, more traditional men will still invite you to such affairs. They figure if you get drunk together you have advanced your friendship to the next level and now you can be trustworthy business partners.
Drinking in China is also seen as a hobby, like chess or knitting. It is something you can strive to “be good at.”

Not a few companies in China hire their managers in part based on their drinking prowess. Many bosses have been known to hire assistants who can hold their drink, because it is
acceptable to have your assistant drink for you.

You can avoid drinking if you have an excuse such as allergies or religious beliefs. Some people drink part of the glass and dump the rest on the tablecloth to trick the host. Post-banquet table tops are war zones anyway, littered with cigarette butts and chewed-up but uneaten carcasses of fish, chicken, ducks, and shrimp, so most people might not notice your sleight of hand. Others have asked the waiter to fill the glass with water to also trick the host. It is a fine balancing act to avoid offending your host, but also maintaining your own sobriety standards.