聊天常用英语口语第77期:喝茶还是咖啡?

Zhao: in China at least, coffee is often associated with an exotic, well-to-do bourgeois lifestyle. Coffee is often considered a hobby of the well-educated, middle-class people.

Tony: maybe that's why some young chaps often spend a whole afternoon in a coffee bar, surfing the net or just typewriting something with  laptop. While they are savoring a coffee at a leisured pace, they are actually showing off!

Z: yes. Behind a lifestyle, there is a culture. Young people easily become blind worshippers of a Westernized life. While they may not really life coffee, they think it desirable and enviable to be lavish with money in those high-consumption places.

T: then what about tea? We need to bear in mind in the first place that tea, rather than coffee, jas been the most popular drink for the Chinese people.

Z: well. Tea reprements another facet of popular culture. While a coffee bar is usually quiet and resonates with soft, elegant music, a teahouse is often a noisy, crowded, public space. People visit teahouses to associate with others, playing chess, chatting, or simply listening to operas.

T: what a pity that the traditional teahouses, as depicted Lao She, keep fading away so quickly in this metroplis. It is not easy to find an old-fashioned teahouse that suits the ordinary people's spending powerm either. Teahouses of today all feature a cozy, comfortable environment, and high-quality services, but can easily cost you a good deal—just like a coffee bar.

Z: well, that's true. In a sense, it is not so much what you drink that really counts, as where and how you drink.