Tian Quan Fortune Teller _ Tian Quan Fortune Teller

The largest teahouse in Beijing in the late Qing Dynasty: most customers came from Wang Fu.

Today's Tianhui Courtyard

Nowadays, in Beijing's hutongs, various tea restaurants have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. These tea restaurants have a fresh and elegant environment, with not only various flavors of tea, but also delicious fast food, which makes many urban white-collar workers flock to them.

In fact, hundreds of years ago, old Beijingers could not live without tea. Both rich children and ordinary people like to drink tea. At that time, all kinds of teahouses and tea shops were the most common in the streets and alleys of Beijing.

Although there are still scenes of people living in teahouses in many literary works and historical materials, most of these teahouses have disappeared.

Today, a miscellaneous courtyard named Tianhuiyuan in the east of Di 'anmenwai Street Road is in ruins. Many people can't imagine that 100 years ago, there was traffic here. At that time, it was the first of the eight famous pavilions in Beijing: Tianhuixuan Tea House.

Ranked first among the eight tips, Tianhui Courtyard, located in the east of Di 'anmenwai Street Road, is the boundary I have been to since I was a child, and my classmates lived in it when I was at school. But many years later, I realized that one hundred years ago, it was the largest teahouse in Beijing-Tianhuixuan.

According to written records, Tianhuixuan Teahouse has hundreds of houses, including elegant seats and courtyards, as well as an oven room for making Manchu-Chinese banquets for guests and a large carriage parking lot. Liu Ziliu, the grandson of the owner of Tianhuixuan Teahouse, told us that Tianhuixuan is a place where people from all walks of life, such as three religions and nine streams, five elements and eight accomplishments, gather. From the dignitaries in the palace and relatives of the royal family to the handlebar style, three-wheeled style and matchmaker style, it can be said that there are many talents.

Jin Shoushen, an expert in Beijing history, wrote in the article "The Great Teahouse": The Great Teahouse experienced the Red and Purple Universiade in Beijing in the Qing Dynasty. Before Gengzi (1900), there were many teahouses in Beijing, and Tianhuixuan outside Houmen (Di 'anmen) was the largest. (Gengzi) was destroyed by fire, and now he meets in the yard all day. As we all know, he once opened a market.

It is said that in the heyday of that year, Tianhuixuan outside Di 'anmen; Tian Quan Xuan, Tianren Xuan and Tianqi Xuan in Qianmen Street; Tianshouxuan in Beixinqiao; Tianfu Xuan, Tiandexuan and Tianyixuan in Fuchengmen are collectively called the eight pavilions in Beijing, and Tianhuixuan ranks first among the eight.

Tianhuixuan has become a famous teahouse in Beijing because of many factors, such as weather, geographical location, human harmony and so on. Because it is located on the central axis, it is ten minutes away from Shenwumen, the north gate of the Palace, and close to Houmenqiao and Shichahai. Palace dignitaries or powerful eunuchs often come to visit the teahouse, and their business is very prosperous. Moreover, Shichahai was an open floodplain, much wider than it is now, and the water surface and market stalls were intertwined, which was a good place for Beijing to enjoy the cool in midsummer. Selling chicken head rice, water chestnut, lotus, one after another, an endless stream. But it is purely a trading market, and there is no place to rest. When people are tired of shopping, it is inevitable to have a rest and have a rare sumptuous food in a nearby teahouse.

In the past, Beijingers, especially the children of the Eight Banners, paid attention to having morning tea and breakfast in the teahouse. The snacks and snacks made by Tianhuixuan, such as Aiwowo, honey twist, croissants, sugar ears and braised cookies, are not only moderate in sweetness and salty, but also delicious and beautiful in appearance. All kinds of snacks are made into the size of walnuts, and six pieces are put on each plate. Tea drinkers arrived at Tianhuixuan early in the morning to make a bowl of tea, take stock, eat and drink, and chat with mountains and seas. Tea drinkers who keep birds are more pleasing to the eye than anyone else, and the business of tea houses is naturally booming.

Most customers come from Wang Fu Building. It is said that the Guangqingxuan Bookstore in Liuyihutong, west of Di 'anmenwai Street, is comparable to Tianhuixuan, but the teahouse is famous for setting up a bookstore, where customers listen to storytelling and drink tea. Tianhuixuan is unmoved and adheres to its aristocratic business purpose. An insider said that the shadow of Tian Huixuan can be seen in Lao She's masterpiece Teahouse, but the scale of the teahouse in his play is much worse than that of Tian Huixuan.

Of course, a teahouse of this size and grade like Tianhuixuan can't be sustained by ordinary people and people who are tired of visiting Shichahai. Its regular customers are in Di 'anmen and Shichahai, and there are not only many palaces and luxury houses, but also many office buildings. They open their eyes and come to the teahouse every morning, sometimes for a whole day. Maoer Hutong, not far from Tianhuixuan, is the seat of Bujun and Yamen. Every day, officials go to Tianhuixuan to have morning tea and breakfast, and then go to the yamen to wait on them. As long as the service is good and there are no tourists, Tianhuixuan will grow bigger and bigger.

Wang Xifu is now over 70 years old, and his grandfather worked in the palace in his early years. Wang Xifu recalled: Grandfather Wenshan Wang was not addicted to alcohol and tobacco, but he liked drinking tea, and everything else was easy-going. All year round, I only drink Longjing and fragrant tablets. On holidays, they will give some good tea, all of which are tributes. In addition, go to the teahouse to buy it. At that time, my grandfather used to drink morning tea in Tianhuixuan Teahouse outside Di 'anmen. This is a famous "Red Furnace Pavilion" (one of the big teahouses in Beijing, so it is called "Red Furnace Pavilion"). Man-Han banquet cakes are very carefully made, with eight pieces in size, cylinder furnace, crisp noodles, hard noodles and seasonal snacks, which are quite famous in Beijing. Tianhuixuan in the late Qing Dynasty was a gathering place for talents with five elements and eight accomplishments. Here, you can meet not only the leading figures in business circles and antique calligraphy and painting circles, but also the young master carrying caged birds, the fortune-teller of divination, the "hand-in-hand" who eats tiles (the real estate agent in the old capital) and the vendor playing hard drums.

Liu recalled that in the late Qing Dynasty, Eight-Nation Alliance went to Beijing to burn and rob, and Tianhuixuan Teahouse was destroyed by a fire. It is said that the fire burned all night. I once heard my grandparents say that Tianhuixuan Teahouse was jealous by Eight-Nation Alliance, but it had to be burned down. Its geographical location and business objects determined its special role in the society at that time, which angered the invaders. Afraid of gathering people to make trouble or even forming a dangerous situation of resistance.

In addition, there is another reason why intruders are jealous, that is, Tianhuixuan is the foothold of plainclothes detectives. In the Qing Dynasty, the prefect of the capital army led the yamen to the palace outside Di 'anmen for mercy. It's not convenient for cloth army detectives to wear plain clothes in and out of the public gate, and they all work in the nearest yamen Tianhuixuan. Tianhuixuan has long been the daily residence of plainclothes detectives from Xianfeng to Tongzhi. We have everything for drinking tea, working and chatting, which will inevitably arouse the envy of intruders.