The last time I stayed here I was woken by a kettle. Not a hotel kettle clicking off in a wall socket — a real one, on a brazier, in a courtyard, being dealt with by somebody who had been up for an hour already. It is a sound you do not expect in a city of eight million people, and it is the entire product of 楠木厅九号民宿 Námùtīng Jiǔhào Mínsù — 楠木厅 No.9 — a courtyard house in the old town where the day begins with boiling water for tea.
The house sits in 楠木厅巷, a lane off 连升街 in the 潮宗街 historic district, at number 9. 楠木厅 means “camphor-wood hall,” and nine is nine. It is a 四合院 sìhéyuàn, the classic walled courtyard plan — buildings on all four sides, open to the sky in the middle — and in the middle stands a tree the staff say is a hundred years old, with a tea pavilion under it, a bench and a table.
What a 茶宿 Is
楠木厅九号 is not a hotel that happens to serve tea. It is a 茶宿 chásù — a tea-lodging — which is a specifically Chinese idea with no clean English equivalent. The building was converted from a traditional house inside the 潮宗街 conservation area, and the conversion was organised around a single activity: drinking tea slowly, in a good room, with nothing else on the schedule.
So the ground floor, which in another guesthouse would be a reception desk and a luggage store, has been rebuilt as a teahouse: traditional Chinese forms on one side, modern Chinese minimalism on the other, with windows people stop in front of to photograph. It opens as an afternoon-tea spot for non-residents, which means the common area is a real room with a real purpose rather than a lobby with chairs.
And every guest room has a complete tea setup — pot, cups, tray, and the space to use them properly. The drinking water supplied is 农夫山泉 Nóngfū Shānquán; that sounds like a small thing to mention until you have tried brewing good tea with bad water. The owner’s line, roughly translated, is that the house is for people who love tea, love beautiful things and love life, and who want somewhere with warmth in it.
The Courtyard, and the Winter
The courtyard does the work in summer and the fire does it in winter.
Under the tree there are tea tables, and in the cold months they bring out a charcoal brazier — 炭火煮茶 tànhuǒ zhǔ chá, tea boiled over charcoal, which is slower and smokier and altogether better than tea made in a kitchen. 板栗 and 糍粑 cíbā, pounded glutinous rice cakes, go on the grill beside it. Chestnuts and toasted rice cake, over coals, in an old southern courtyard, with a pot of tea: it is the best justification I can give for this place, and it is not available anywhere else at this price.
The Rooms
Thirteen rooms or so, named after tea and water rather than numbered, which is either charming or irritating depending on your feelings about finding your own door at midnight.
- 泠水 / 圆璧 / 生翠 / 啜茗 — kings with the full tea set and a 禅意茶台 chányì chátái, a low meditative tea table
- 灵芽 — king with the complete tea service and the meditative table; the connoisseur’s pick
- 凝烟 / 光莹 — kings with a bathtub
- 香永 — projection-screen room with tub; big wall, big film
- 素瓷 / 流霞 — twin and double rooms
- 瑟尘 / 芳丛 / 沫香 — family rooms, including a parent-and-child room with its own tea set
The specification is better than the word “guesthouse” suggests, and clearly deliberate: central air-conditioning and 24-hour central hot water throughout, hotel-standard bedding and toiletries, and in every bathroom 科勒 Kohler basins, taps, showers and WCs. That is the detail that tells you who this is aimed at — people who want an old courtyard and a tea ceremony but have no intention of accepting a bad shower to get one.
There is parking with charging points, a call-a-car service, laundry, and a chargeable 棋牌室 if your party wants a mahjong room. Rooms are non-smoking.
Practicalities
Price. Entry rooms start at about ¥390 a night, which is the whole reason this place matters. There is a five-star design hotel a few hundred metres away on the same street — 6500 — starting at around ¥1,000. 楠木厅九号 is not competing with it; it offers the same granite lanes, the same six hundred years of old town and the same walkability for a third of the money, and asks in return that you take thirteen rooms instead of dozens, a courtyard instead of a lobby, and a bathtub down the hall instead of in your room. For a couple staying three nights, that is about a thousand yuan — which in Changsha is a great many bowls of noodles and a very large quantity of 口味虾.
Address. 楠木厅巷 9 号, off 连升街, 潮宗街 historic district, 开福区, Changsha — 长沙市开福区潮宗街连升街楠木厅巷9号.
Rooms. About thirteen, in the tea-and-water naming scheme above: kings with the 禅意茶台, kings with tubs, a projection room, twins and doubles, and three family rooms including a parent-child room. All with tea sets, central air-conditioning, central hot water and 科勒 fittings; non-smoking throughout.
Getting there. Metro line 1 to 培元桥 Péiyuánqiáo puts you closest to the lane; metro line 2 to 五一广场 Wǔyī Guǎngchǎng is the other sensible arrival, with a short walk or a cheap taxi from there. Changsha South railway station is a taxi ride across town; the airport is roughly 45 minutes by car. If you are driving, there is parking with charging points on site.
The Location
连升街 and 楠木厅巷 sit inside the 潮宗街 area of 开福区, on the north-west side of the old city. In practice: a short walk to 中山亭 and 五一广场; 太平街 food street and 火宫殿 within reach on foot; 长沙 IFS and the shopping district a little further. The trade-off of this specific spot, as with 6500, is that you are ten to twenty minutes from the nightlife rather than on top of it. What you get back is a lane where the loudest thing at eleven at night is somebody’s kettle.
What It Refuses to Be
It refuses to be a hotel with a theme. There is no lobby, no lift, no breakfast buffet and no concierge desk — you walk into a teahouse and someone hands you tea. It refuses to be cheap in the way a cheap room usually is: the bed, the water and the bathroom fittings are the ones a five-star would use, because the owner clearly decided the saving should come out of the building’s footprint rather than the guest’s sleep. And it refuses to be a summer place. The brazier and the courtyard work better in January than in July, which is unusual for anything in China’s south.
The Name of the Place
楠木厅 Námùtīng is the lane’s old name: 楠木 nánmù is the camphor-like nanmu timber once reserved for the fittings of the wealthy, and 厅 tīng is a hall, so the lane is named after a hall built of it. 潮宗街 Cháozōng Jiē is the historic street it hangs off, one of the last surviving old commercial quarters of Changsha. And 民宿 mínsù — “people’s lodging” — is the word for exactly what this is: a house you are staying in, not a hotel you are occupying.
flowcloud would say that the most expensive thing in a hotel is usually the silence, and that a courtyard with a kettle in it is the cheapest way anyone has ever found to buy some.
Where to stay: 楠木厅九号民宿 (Namuting No.9), 楠木厅巷 9 号, off 连升街, 潮宗街 district, 开福区, Changsha. Rooms from about ¥390 a night — about thirteen rooms, king and family, all with a full tea set and 科勒 Kohler bathrooms; metro line 1 to 培元桥 or line 2 to 五一广场. A 四合院 courtyard teahouse with a hundred-year-old tree, a charcoal brazier in winter, parking with charging points, and no lobby at all.