The 1.5-km-long Maoliandao Street in Xuanwu District has over 600 shops that sell loose tea and also trade in packages of tea and tea sets. According to official statistics, the eight wholesale tea markets on this street have an annual sales volume of nearly one billion yuan -- one tenth of the national total.

This street is where the Beijing Tea Company was located. The company was the only state-owned tea company in Beijing during the 1950s, and monopolized the supply and sale of tea in Beijing. Since the 1990s some enterprising tea merchants from Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangxi have set up businesses in Maliandao, in the belief that they may gain advantage by neighboring a tea tycoon.

Opposite these chains of small teashops is Maliandao Tea City, a four-story building, which houses around 200 famous tea companies from all over the country. The city offers a full diversity of teas. The highest grades include Dahongpao tea from Wuyi Mountain, Maofeng tea from Huangshan Mountain, Biluochun tea from Taihu Lake, Tieguanyin tea from Anxi and Longjing tea from West Lake. The more commonplace varieties include jasmine tea from Guangxi and Fujian, Songyuan tea, Monkey King tea and Jinghua tea. The famous brands and specialties of various regions and countries include Pu'er tea from Menghai, bitter tea from Hainan Province, High-mountain tea from Taiwan, mate tea from Argentina, black tea from India and Sri Lanka, and barley tea from South Korea. Also on sale are flower teas, including chrysanthemum, honeysuckle, rose, boat-fruited sterculia, and Globeamaranth. All businesses on this street have their own production bases, so the teas purveyed here are 30-40 percent cheaper than elsewhere.

All shops serve tea to customers, and their sales assistants are all well-versed in facts and information about tea. If genuinely interested, customers may buy a copy of The Classic of Tea, by Lu Yu, worshipped as God of Tea in China.

Around the Pure Brightness Festival in early April, Tea City performs on-the-spot tea processing. The tea-leaves are picked at 8-9 o'clock in the morning, packed and air-freighted at noon, arrive at Beijing Capital Airport at 2-3 o'clock in the afternoon, and are processed in the tea market at 4-5 o'clock. Processed in the traditional manner, these fresh leaves are brewed into fragrant tea, and are often sold out in a matter of an hour or so.

Tea drinking has historically been an art-form in the history of China. In the Songyuan Teahouse on the third floor of Tea City, tea serving ceremony is demonstrated every day, and customers may observe the different methods of preparing and drinking tea, as well as obtaining information about tea growing, and particular features of various kinds of tea.

The tea set is obviously an integral aspect of serving tea, and those produced in Jingdezhen are the most famous in China. Among the porcelain produced in Jingdezhen, its blue and white porcelain is considered to be of supreme quality, and its porcelain decorated with colored drawings is also excellent. As to red clay ware, the works of Gu Jingzhou and Jiang Rong are the most well-known. In recent years, the tea sets made in the Jianzhan kiln in Taiwan and the Lu Yu Tea Art Center have also built a high reputation. All of these are available at Tea City, where special tea-sampling rooms have also been designated for Buddhist monks and nuns.

The Songyuan Teahouse also runs a tea-flavored snacks restaurant, where tea-flavored dumplings and cookies and tea drinks, priced at 10-180 yuan, are available.