The cups which look like antiques have covers and saucers. The cup sitting on the saucer looks like a boat floating on the water, hence the name of " the tea-boat " . The cover keeps the water warm and also adjusts the steeping speed of the tea. If you want to drink it immediately after the tea has been made, you can use the cover to strain the tea. So the tea can be soaked well quickly and then it can be drunk. Or the tea can be drunk with the cover on the cup. In this way the tea leaves won't go into the mouth.

People who go to the teahouses are not really thirsty. Retired people pay 50 cents to go to the teahouse and sit there all day long to chat with each other. Sometimes, people bring guests to the teahouses. They eat melon or sunflower seeds while they chat and return home when they are tired of sitting there. Normally, teahouses are the ideal places to kill time, especially for old people. You can stay there for a whole day, drinking and sleeping, especially in summer. For young people and businessman, it is a place to make friends, do business and relax yourself for only a small amount of money. To some extent, it has an ambience something like the pub in western countries.

Teahouses are also places for people from various businesses and organizations to get together to hold trade talks or make deals. In recent years, more and more people go to teahouses for business talks. Some of the teahouses also have theatrical performances, such as storytelling, crosstalk (comic dialogue) and Sichuan opera.

In addition, sometimes when people quarrel a mediator will bring them to the teahouse. When their dispute is settled, the person who is in the wrong will pay for the tea. It is interesting that as soon as the quarrelers enter the teahouse and sit down to drink tea, they almost always cool down. With the help of the mediator their disputes can be easily settled. So the teahouses in Chongqing also have special social functions.

Why is the teahouse business still booming after hundred and thousand years of history? One important reason is that since the ancient times, teahouses have played the role as an important occasion for normal people to exchange information and handle with public affairs. Today, although almost every family has possessed radio, TV and computer and a lot of coffee bars and ballrooms are opened to public, many people, especially the elderly people, still like to go to teahouses, because they believe that teahouse is a good place to meet old friends and to communicate with each other.

Tea house, as a part of tea culture, has been very popular since the end of Ming Dynasty in China, and it has served the tea drinkers with all kinds of tea products and tea wares. Drama and Small Play could also be observed in tea houses since hundreds years ago. Different from restaurants, tea houses do not serve regular meals. However, they do serve Chinese appetizer-like snacks such as dried fruits (e.g.: dried dates), dried cooked meats (e.g.: dried diced curry beef), dried flavored bean products (e.g.: dried and flavored bean curd, and etc), and desserts such as baked rice cakes. People chat, sing, and get relaxed in the tea house while the waiters carrying giant metal, clay, or porcelain tea cattle' s to serve tea. The stage play " Tea House " , written by Lao She, who committed suicide during Chinese Culture Revolution, has been the most famous drama detailing every aspects of the tea house culture in daily life in Qing Dynasty. The traditional teahouse in Chongqing is an amazing structure. For most of them are built of bamboo and wood, not of concrete, and some of the teahouses are strangely shaped. But what makes a teahouse unique is its atmosphere, its food and its clientele.

Recently years, Chongqing culture people opened " Ba Yu Tea House " for developing traditional Ba Yu tea culture and making domestic and foreign guests appreciate the custom of it. The tea house has received many guests and became a window of Chongqing Tea House.