China’s a republic built on tea, not coffee, so when Starbucks wanted to dig deeper into the country, it had to do tea. Thankfully, Starbucks now does Green Tea, English Breakfast, and a host of other tea.

But no chrysanthemum tea.

And according to traditional Chinese med experts, that stuff is supposed to be good for ya. It’s supposed to make you chill… and make you feel a lot better. It’s too bad Starbucks doesn’t offer that stuff: Starbucks’s loss is Chamate’s gain.

Chamate (一茶一坐), a tea house chain that is supposedly Taiwanese by origin, is one of those places where you lose yourself in their menu. They have just about every last variant of tea you could probably name — or not name, rather. For Tea Gods, it’s a dream come true. It’s true that they have smoking areas — hence giving them one less point in their favour (smoking is bad for ya), but at least they’ve adequate wifi. We say adequate as it seems to be doing the wifi waltz every so often, disconnecting especially your tech blogger.

There are a host of Chamate outlets in both Beijing and Shanghai, and there’s even one in Tianjin (right by the Yingkoudao Metro station). This particular Chamate (as in Chamate Guomao) is located in the China World Mall, where a Starbucks on the ground floor has sucked in more expats than you can imagine. Provided you don’t mind about the rather dim lighting, next time you want to invite someone to tea (or get invited “to tea” by the secret police — Chinese Netspeak for being grabbed to a cop station in order for them to tell you “what not to say on the Web”), try this place. It’s also a good place to escape the Starbucks crowds, which at times can seem — well, too PRC. (People’s Republic. Get it?)

Wifi: Free; password-protected.
Signal: OK in general. Disconnects happen.
VPN support: Generally OK.
Transit links: Guomao Subway Station on Lines 1 and 10 (exit A for direct access to China World Mall).

Chamate Guomao (一茶一坐國貿店)
Underground Level 1; west area
China World Mall
Beijing, China