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.
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!
Yes. Behind a lifestyle, there is a culture. Young people easily become blind worshippers of a Westernized life. While they may not really like coffee, they think it desirable and enviable to be lavish with money in those high-consumption places.
Then what about tea? We need to bear in mind in the first place that tea, rather than coffee, has been the most popular drink for the Chinese people.
Well. Tea represents 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.
What a pity that the traditional teahouses, as depicted by Lao She, keep fading away so quickly in this metropolis. It is not easy to find an old-fashioned teahouse that suits the ordinary people's spending power 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.