The Art of Serving Tea

This video gives an introduction to the concept of the tea ceremony in a Chinese wedding.

The tea ceremony is a significant event in a typical Chinese wedding. It provides both an opportunity for the bride and groom to show respect for their elders, as well as means of introducing the new bride/groom to the respective family.

Traditionally, the bride will serve tea in the morning to her parents before the groom and guests arrive to thank her parents for bringing her up. After the groom picks the bride up, they will proceed to his place for the tea ceremony. When this is completed, they will return to the bride's family to serve tea to her elders. Thankfully, we're cutting this travelling in-between places out due to the absence of a 'groom's place', so it will all be taking place at my parent's house. Yay!

The order of serving tea is also marked by strict conventions:

1. Woman to be on the left side and the man on the right (so that the bride would be in front of the father-in-law)
2. The people being served tea will be seated in chairs.
3. Traditionally, the bride and groom will kneel whilst serving tea (but that's usually reserved for the oldest members of the family these days).
4. The first persons to be served tea will be the groom's parents, followed by his paternal grandparents, then his maternal grandparents.
5. Subsequent persons to be servd tea will be the oldest uncles and aunties, followed by older siblings.

In return to serving tea to the elders, the bride and groom will receive lucky red envelopes ("lai see", which means "lucky") filled with money or jewellery. This is, again, to wish the newlyweds luck in their marriage. In some cases, relatives who are served tea would take this opportunity to give a more generous red envelope and not give another one at the wedding dinner. This is a matter of preference rather than a strict rule. The bride's jewellery from the relatives were also a sign of how fortunate she is, so more gold = luckier bride.

The tea serving ceremony is usually assisted by a woman who is regarded as lucky (i.e, have had a very good marriage and has many children - know of anyone?). Her role is to pour the tea out for the bride and groom to serve to the elders and introduce the elders so that they know the formal title to address them (e.g. first uncle, first aunt). The tea served is usually boiled with lotus seeds and two red dates because "lotus"（莲， lián） and 'year" （年, nián） "seed" （子， zǐ） and "child" （子， zǐ）, and "date" （枣， zǎo） and "early" （早， zǎo）are homophones (i.e. have the same sound but different meanings in Chinese) and it was believed that putting these items in the tea would help the newlyweds produce children early in their marriage and every year, which would ensure that the parents would have many grandchildren. Hmm...