Culture in a Cup. Chinese Tea Heritage and Tourism

Tea is arguably one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. It has been imbued with diverse medicinal, cultural and symbolic characteristics. Tea plays a significant role in the construction of contemporary national and regional identities that are in turn presented and represented for tourists in form of tea houses, museums, tea trails, guided tours and tea tasting. Based on ethnographic participant observation in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Taipei, and Pinglin the paper tackles a comparative analysis of tea culture as used and represented in cultural tourism, focusing on identity narratives of specialised tea museums, tea houses and tea ceremonies in order to show diverse identity and cultural construction based on particular historical circumstances.