Heming Tea House

This guide to Heming Tea House in Chengdu traces a century-old open-air teahouse founded in 1923 by a man named Gong on the shore of what was then Shaochiao Park, and the dream of crying cranes and dancing swallows behind its name. It follows how neighboring teahouses were torn down, rebuilt or moved over the past hundred years while this one never budged, keeping its bamboo chairs under the trees. You'll hear the metallic ring of an ear-cleaning artisan at work between the tables, one of the strangest rituals still practiced in a Chinese teahouse. Listen too for the long-spouted copper teapots poured from arm's length across the room.