The art of Tea Time

Best Time for Tea (白石茶馆) chose the right place to open inside Beijing's 798 Art Zone. Most visitors are likely to wow at the beautiful art works by Qi Baishi (18641957), the late Chinese ink and wash painting master.

The teahouse has been lucky enough to get the permission of Qi's families to use his work. Qi is most famous for painting shrimps but his flowers, fruits and vegetable paintings are also great artworks. The teahouse has replicas of Qi's paintings on the wall and lovely images like cherries and loquats, on cushions, teacups, tableware and notebooks, which are all for sale.

The teahouse is also famous for a cage that sits next to it - it has a diameter of 6 meters and inside are stone tables and stools, making it a nice cool indoors spot to drink tea when the weather is warm. According to co-founder Koleman Huang, the cage is both a symbol of Beijingers' easy lives in the old days and the restrained lives of modern people.