I saw a woman in a mall; she was very elegant in neatly pressed black slacks with a slight flare at the ankle. She wore a black long sleeve shirt which was covered by a dark red jerkin. She had just left a boutique selling a well known line of cosmetics. Her uniform was clearly one of those who worked in the store. What did this chic young lady have in her hand, yes you guessed it, it was the jar. This was a slender designer jar with a lid that was as chic as the lady herself, it was coffee colour and rimmed with golden circles. It was very impressive however the liquid inside was clear and therefore I suspect not tea. An insight into the person, again I would venture, slick chic jar for a slick chic young lady. She was not a traditionalist I would suspect. Perhaps not only her style of jar indicated her personality but perhaps the contents as well.

This brings us to the subject of the contents of the jar, and does it vary from person to person. I have mentioned above there is circumstantial evidence that some of them contain a very weak Chinese tea and this was the best explanation I could figure at one stage. It would explain the brown grunge as that would be made by the tannin in the tea. After many visits to the Chinese capital I have seen many jars and I do not believe the Chinese tea argument is true anymore. In the case above the young lady clearly had no tea in her jar and my salesman from the office definitely never had tea in his jar.

I mentioned my hotel driver earlier and his very modern and fancy jar, it was packed with green leaves and filled with a clear liquid. I could guess as I was in Beijing that this was probably tea, but then again being in China it is quite possible it wasn’t tea either. It could be any other kind of substance I haven’t even dreamed of and I frankly don’t need to know about. The contents would reinforce my opinion of the hip young gentleman and the fancy glass jar.