Drink - Beverages in China

Drink

The Chinese love a tipple, but unless you are used to imbibing heavily, be careful when drinking with Chinese. Generally speaking, heavy drinking is more prevalent in northern China than in southern China.

There are hardly any liquor laws in China. The legal drinking age is 18, but it’s basically not enforced, and you’ll never need to show ID. Alcohol can be purchased anywhere and drunk anywhere.

Toasting

Toasts are made by saying “gānbēi” (干杯, lit. “dry glass”). Drinks are served in small glasses (even beer is usually drunk from oversized shot glasses), and traditionally you should drain the whole glass for a toast.

Chinese toasts are generally one-on-one, not something involving the whole table. At most meals, a visitor can expect everyone at the table to offer them a toast. Visitors should also offer toasts and not just receive them. This means that if you are out for dinner with a dozen people, you will be expected and pressured to drink around two dozen toasts. Fortunately, it’s okay to stick to beer, and Chinese beer is usually low alcohol.

It may be considered rude if you don’t offer a toast to someone whenever you take a drink, at least at the start of a meal. The same applies to smoking; offer the pack around whenever you want to light up.

If you want to take it easy but still be sociable, say “‘suíbiàn” (随便) or “pèngbeī” (碰杯) before you make the toast, then drink only part of the glass. It may also be possible to have three toasts (traditionally signifying friendship) with the entire company, rather than a separate toast for each person.

Alcohol

See also: Chinese cuisine § Alcoholic

The all-purpose word jiǔ (酒, “alcohol”) covers quite a range of alcoholic drinks.

Beer (啤酒 píjiǔ) is common in China and is served in nearly every restaurant and sold in many grocery stores. The most famous brand is Tsingtao (青島 Qīngdǎo) from Qingdao, which was at one point a German concession.

Locally made grape wine (葡萄酒 pútáojiǔ) is common and much of it is reasonably priced, but usually bears only the faintest resemblance to Western wines. The Chinese like their wines red and very sweet, and they’re typically served over ice or mixed with Sprite. That said, things are beginning to charge in the 2020s, and some wines from the Yantai area in Shandong, the Helan Mountains in Ningxia, and the Ili Valley and Turpan-Hami Basin in Xinjiang have held their own against mid-ranged European wines.

There are also several brands and types of rice wine. Most of these resemble a watery rice pudding, they are usually sweet and contain a minute amount of alcohol for taste.

Baijiu (白酒 Báijiǔ) is distilled liquor, generally 40% to 60% alcohol by volume, made from sorghum and sometimes other grains depending on the region. Maotai or Moutai (茅台 Máotái), from the eponymous town in Guizhou Province, is China’s national liquor. Maotai and its expensive cousins (such as Kaoliang from Kinmen in Taiwan) are well known for their strong fragrance and are actually sweeter than western clear liquors as the sorghum taste is preserved — in a way.

Chinese brandy (白兰地 báilándì) is excellent value, priced about the same as wine. There are several brands; all are drinkable and many visitors find them more palatable than baijiu.

The Chinese are also great fans of various supposedly medicinal liquors, which usually contain exotic herbs and/or animal parts. Some of these have prices in the normal range and include ingredients like ginseng, while other more exotic may include snakes, wasps and newborn mice. These can be palatable enough, if tending toward sweetness. Note that some medicinal liquors are only intended for external use.

Bars, discos and karaoke

Western-style pubs can be found in the larger cities. Especially in the more affluent and cosmopolitan cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, you can find painstakingly recreated replicas of traditional Irish or English pubs. Like their Western counterparts, most will have a selection of foreign beers on tap, provide pub food (of varying quality) and often feature live cover bands. These are mostly aimed at expatriates, so you should not expect to find many Chinese there. Imported beer can be very expensive compared to local brew.

To just go out for a few drinks with friends, pick a local restaurant and drink beer at around ¥5 for a 600 ml bottle. It will be Chinese lager, around 3% alcohol, with a limited choice of brand and may be served warm. Most mid- to high-range restaurants will have small private suites for gatherings (usually offered free if there are more than around 5 people), and the staff will generally not try to hustle you out even if you decide to stay until closing time. Many residents frequent outdoor restaurants or roadside stalls and barbecues (烧烤 shāokǎo) for a nice and inexpensive evening.

In discos and fancy bars with entertainment, you normally buy beer ¥100 at a time; this gets you anywhere from 4 import-brand beer (Heineken, Bud, Corona, Sol, etc.) to 10 local beers. A few places offer cocktails; fewer have good ones.

Other drinks are sold only by the bottle, not by the glass. Red wine is in the ¥80-200 range (served with ice and Sprite) and mediocre imported whiskeys (extremely rarely single malts) and cognacs, ¥300-800. Both are often mixed with sweet bottled green or red tea. Vodka, tequila and rum are less common, but sometimes available. Bogus “brand name” products are fairly common and may ruin your next day.

These places often have bar girls, attractive young women who drink a lot and want to play drinking games to get you to consume more. They get a commission on whatever you buy. In general, these girls will not leave the bar with you; they are professional flirts, not prostitutes.

Karaoke (卡拉OK kǎlā’ōukèi) is huge in China and can be broadly split into two categories. More common is the no-frills karaoke box or KTV, where you rent a room, bring your friends and the house gives you a mic and sells you booze. Much favored by students, these are cheap and fun with the right crowd, although you need at least a few people for a memorable night.

Rather different is the distinctly dodgier special KTV lounge, more oriented to businessmen entertaining clients or letting their hair down, where the house provides anything and everything at a price. At these often opulent establishments — over-the-top Roman and Egyptian themes are standard — you’ll be joined by short-skirted professional karaoke girls, who charge by the hour for the pleasure of their company and whose services may not be limited to just singing badly and pouring your drinks. Don’t venture into these unless you’re absolutely sure somebody else is footing the bill, which can easily run into hundreds of dollars even if you keep your pants on.

Never accept an invitation to a restaurant or bar from an available-looking woman who just picked you up in the street sometime after sundown. At best, suggest a different place. If she refuses, drop her on the spot. More than likely, she will steer you into a quiet little place with too many doormen and you will find yourself saddled with a modest meal and beer that will cost you ¥1,000 or worse. And the doormen won’t let you leave till you pay up.

Tea

China is the birthplace of tea culture, and at the risk of stating the obvious, there’s a lot of tea (茶 chá) in China. Green tea (绿茶 lǜchá) is served up for free in some restaurants (depending on region) or for a small fee. For more information, see Chinese cuisine#Tea.

The most common types served are:

gunpowder tea (珠茶 zhū chá): a green tea named after the appearance of the bunched-up leaves used to brew it
jasmine tea (茉莉花茶 mòlìhuā chá): green-tea scented with jasmine flowers
oolong (烏龍 wūlóng): a half-fermented mountain tea.

Specialist tea houses serve a vast variety of brews, ranging from the pale, delicate white tea (白茶 báichá) to the powerful fermented and aged pu’er tea (普洱茶 pǔ’ěrchá). Most tea shops will be more than happy to let you sit down and try different varieties of tea. “Ten Fu Tea” is a national chain.

Chinese teas are drunk without sugar or milk. However, in almost all cities you will find abundant Hong Kong style “milk tea” (奶茶 nǎichá), and maybe Tibetan “butter tea”. Taiwanese bubble tea (珍珠奶茶 zhēnzhū nǎichá) is also popular; the “bubbles” are balls of tapioca and milk or fruit are often mixed in.

Coffee

Coffee (咖啡 kāfēi) is popular in urban China, though it can be quite difficult to find in smaller towns. Several chains of coffee shops have branches in many cities. There are many small independent coffee shops or local chains. See Chinese cuisine#Coffee.

Cold drinks

Many drinks that are usually served chilled or with ice in the West are served at room temperature in China. Ask for beer or soda in a restaurant, and it may arrive at room temperature, though beer is more commonly served cold, at least in the summer. Water will generally be served hot. That is actually good, because only boiled (or bottled) water is safe to drink.

Small grocery stores and restaurants sell cold drinks, just look for the cooler (even though it might not actually be cool). You can try bringing a cold beverage into a restaurant. Most small restaurants won’t mind—if they even notice—and there is no such thing as a “cork” charge in China. Most people will be drinking tea, which is free anyway, so the restaurant is probably not expecting to profit on your beverage consumption.

Asking for ice is best avoided. Many, perhaps most, places just don’t have it. The ice they do have may well be made from unfiltered tap water and unsafe for travelers sweating bullets about diarrhea.

Content adapted from Wikivoyage, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.