Chinese Tea Sayings

Tea is an unseparable element of Chinese culture, so you can bet there are everyday Chinese saying involving tea. Let’s learn some of them. Translation is not easy as with anything to do with things from the “culture” level. Forgive me if he is not doing a good job. (Well, you wouldn’t have known anyways)

Chinese Sayings That Involves Chinese Tea
You have “more saliva than tea”
Tone: can be cute, can be offensive Meaning: you are talking too much.
“Let’s have tea some other time”
Situation: when you run into a friend, who you haven’t seen for a long time, on the street but don’t have time to chat at that moment. A Cantonese saying. Sort of the same as “let’s catch up over dim sum” or “let’s catch up later”. But, such invitation may or may not be serious, ie., you can say that to your respected school teacher as well as your ex-girl/boyfriend who ditched you for a rich someone (yes, being hypocritical).
Let’s have some tea.
A Cantonese saying. The “have tea” here doesn’t mean the serious kind of tea drinking/tasting, it means Dim Summing. However in Mandarin, it actually mean drinking tea, not necessarily tea tasting though.
“cold tea, hot beer”
Tone: very negative Yuck! That is a rating for a bad restaurant. Tea should be hot and beer should be cold. Cold tea hot beer meaning a restaurant is not serving you well.
“man walks, tea cools” or “the men walk away and the tea gets cold”
Both Cantonese and Mandarin Tone: negative When someone leaves a position, the relationship network on the position dies. Meaning the relationship only exists when someone has certain authority. People are being realistic and they don’t give a damn any more after that someone leaves the position.
“have tea in place of liquor”
Both Cantonese and Mandarin Setting: on dinner table or any place where you have a cup of wine or tea. When you want to show respect to someone or thank someone, you raise your cup of wine, say “for my respect”, and then finish the cup. If you do the non-alcoholic version with tea, you say “To show my respect, (I’ll use) tea in place of liquor”.
“unrefined tea and unflavored rice”
Both Cantonese and Mandarin Meaning living a very simple life.
“He’s invited to (the police station, for example) have tea.”
Originally Cantonese saying, but it is now widely used by Mandarin speakers too. Meaning: He’s done something (wrong/illegal/unlawful) so he is being questioned at the (police station).

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