A Little Tea and a Long Afternoon

Cherry worked in sales at the centre and wanted to improve her English. On a Monday off, she invited me to lunch at eleven.

It felt early, but I went.

We began with beef noodles. Her English and my Chinese didn’t take us very far, so we ate through stretches of silence and used WeChat translation when we needed help.

I told her I liked culture, art and museums. She took me by bus to a library, where I could browse as many books as I wanted.

There were beautiful art books, some enormous. I couldn’t read the text, but I could look at the images. Cherry had listened to what interested me and found somewhere to take me, despite how difficult conversation could be.

Finding the bus stop afterwards was less straightforward. The outward walk had seemed short; the return felt much longer. Cherry consulted Baidu Maps, and we still managed to lose our way.

It was reassuring to discover that having the right app didn’t mean always knowing where you were going.

As I settled into China, I noticed how many everyday tasks could be organised through a phone. Over time, I would also notice charging points and rentable power banks in shops and restaurants. There seemed to be another service for every small inconvenience.

I was impressed, although part of me still liked the reassurance of a paper map. Given my own sense of direction, that reassurance may have been misplaced.

Back near the centre, Cherry offered to buy tea.

I expected green tea. What she had in mind looked closer to milky British tea, with a thick layer of cream on top.

Then came a question I wasn’t used to being asked: how much sugar did I want?

She gave me a choice of percentages. I asked for none, or as little as possible, which seemed to surprise her.

The shop was called Yi Dian Dian—‘A Little’. We took a ticket and waited. I remember the queue taking about thirty-five minutes.

Cherry explained that a busy place was a good sign. People were willing to wait because they liked what it sold. Another colleague had offered similar advice about products that were almost sold out. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it gave me a clue when I couldn’t read the labels.

Around Hangzhou, I began noticing restaurant queues with rows of chairs, sometimes accompanied by drinks or snacks for those waiting. Waiting for food could be an activity in itself.

Eventually, our tea arrived.

Mine had a sweet, creamy topping over the tea. Cherry’s had tapioca pearls, which she said she enjoyed chewing. I didn’t quite understand the appeal of the pearls, but I loved my drink.

I kept the order ticket. With Cherry’s help, I worked out the pronunciation so that I could ask for it again: hóngchá mǎchíduǒ, a black tea macchiato.

At around fifteen yuan, it soon became a regular purchase. Learning Chinese was considerably more appealing when the immediate reward was something I wanted to drink.

Later, I tried a cheese-topped matcha at HeyTea, which became a day-off treat. Costa and Starbucks gradually stopped being my automatic choices.

A lunch invitation had turned into a library visit, a long walk and a lesson in ordering tea.

I was still relying on other people for plenty of things. But now, at least, I could buy my favourite drink myself.