Tea anyone?? / Date si cajik??

Everyone knows that the Czechs like their coffee. What is their current relationship to tea though? During communism it was hard to develop any kind of a relationship with this beverage since there were only two kind of black teas: the Pigi and the Klub brands – both equally disgusting. After the wall came down, however, the tea business together with other “western goodies” started to flourish. The first tea room in the Czech Republic called “Dobra Cajovna” was built in 1993 right on Venceslav Square in Prague. The owners – back in 1987 – established kind of a half-secret club of tea lovers where they tried to smuggle various teas from Hungary, East Germany or England. Once they started building their dream everyone was poking fun of them; little did those teasers know that 10 years later this country will be overflowing with more than 300 of these tea rooms! The tea mania is enjoyed mostly by the teenagers who supposedly through a cup of tea ( together with a water-pipe) are trying to become more spiritual – or become “one with the world” as they say….

Kazdy vi, ze Cesi miluji kafe. Jak se ale stavi k caji? Behem komunismu to bylo lehke; jedine dva druhy caje, ktere existovaly byly tzv. Pigi a Klub. Oba dva druhy chutnaly tak otresne, ze neni divu, ze Cechy moc “cajaru” nemely. Po Sametove revoluci se cajova moda zacala pomalu vracet. Prvni cajovna, tzv. “Dobra Cajovna”, byla dokoncena roku 1993 a dodnes stoji na Vaclavskem namesti. Jejimi tvurci byla skupinka lidi, ktera se jiz od roku 1987 potajmu schazela v “prazskych tunelech” a to aby si mohla pochutnavat na “nelegalnich” cajich, vestinou propasovanych z Madarska, Nemecka nebo Anglie. I kdyz se te jejich cajovne z pocatku vsichni vysmivali, dnes vime, kdo si zpiva: Cechy maji dnes prez vice nez 300 cajoven, samotna Dobra Cajovna ma odbocky nejen v jinych ceskych mestech ale take na Slovensku a v USA! Nejvetsimi spotrebiteli caju je pry mladez: v jedne ruce vodni dymku, z druhe si usrkavaji exoticky caj a premysleji o Bohu a smyslu zivota…

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/97072