Soft options

Drinking trends are changing in the light of the smoking ban and other influences. So could we be ready for the Chinese tea-house? Andrew Jefford tests the water and tries beer in a bowl

Here's a simple question. Will Britons drink more or less alcohol in the future than they do now? It would take a brave pundit to predict a rise. Social pressures, the political agenda, a changing population mix and ever-increasing health concerns seem certain to conspire to reduce our overall alcohol consumption. Perhaps this is a good thing - particularly if the reduction can be concentrated among those who still visibly over-consume.

But is it bad news for licensees? On the face of it, yes. After all, the licence itself is one that permits the sale of alcohol. Take away that point of difference, and the horizon of competition stretches away almost endlessly. Many pubs' best customers may not be drunks or louts - they're likely to be those who regard guidelines recommending the correct number of daily units of alcohol with disdain.

I returned recently from a 10-day visit to China. It was instructive to take a peek at how the world's most populous country manages such matters. China's per-capita alcohol consumption is about half that of Europe, though it has risen steeply in recent years, as has domestic production of alcoholic drinks.

Despite relatively low production and consumption figures, China's tradition of alcohol use dates back 7,000 years. The revered Chinese poet, Li Bai (701-762), is perhaps the greatest literary eulogiser of wine the world has ever known, and Chinese medicine regards moderate use of alcohol as beneficial.

Most drinking in China is social, and

alcohol is mostly drunk with food. Beer and rice wine - which can be anything from sherry-strength to more than 50% abv - are the most common alcoholic drinks.

An interesting Chinese drinking phenomenon is that about 10% of China's population (about twice Britain's population) respond with a flushing sensation, due to a deficiency in the alcohol-metabolising enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase. Sensations are unpleasant, so "flushers" tend to drink less than "non-flushers", or avoid alcohol altogether.

Mythical nights out

I wasn't sure that most of the Chinese I met really enjoyed the taste of alcohol. Beer was often served as a courtesy at meal-times, but was rarely chilled or served in good glassware. Once, it was poured into the bowl from which I'd just finished eating soup.

Business dinners often included strong rice wine (imagine a grappa made from Tio Pepe, and you're almost there), but its chief purpose seemed to be to permit round after round of toasts, when one was expected to drain the tiny glass of firewater. Sipping and savouring weren't on the menu. The business guest is often taken off at this point to a nightclub or KTV (karaoke bar) at which the host will display genuine generosity by buying a bottle of ferociously-expensive Johnnie Walker Black Label - only to mix it with sweet bottled green tea and soda water.

There is one genuine Chinese equivalent of the British pub experience: the tea-house, characterised by traditional surroundings and furnishings, good food and drink, and aromas and flavours with which everyone feels happy and comfortable. The tea-house is the kind of place where you can really relax for a few hours with friends. Its friendly staff are happy to chat if you happen to be on your own, and the parallels are striking.

My two most enjoyable evenings there were passed in a tea-house (many Chinese eat dinner early). I can still hear the traditional music, see the wooden tea-stands and silk uniforms, taste watermelon and lychee, and smell the captivating aroma of fine, fresh, whole-leaf green tea picked less than two months earlier ... and guess what? No alcohol.

And guess what again? I didn't miss it.

Travel certainly broadens the mind. These tea-house experiences made me realise I'd spent my entire life believing a myth - that a couple of drinks were an essential part of a good night out. And they're not. They are the ingredients for one kind of good night out, but it's not the only one. An evening spent drinking non-alcoholic drinks can be just as much fun - in some ways more fun. You make as much sense at the end as you did at the beginning; you will probably sleep better, and will almost certainly wake up feeling better.

The key to this is that the non-alcoholic drink must be as good, interesting, life-enhancing, and as complex and rewarding as a pint of Landlord or Black Sheep Ale.

Balancing act

Perhaps, I began to think, British pubs themselves are as over-addicted to alcohol as some Britons. I'm not suggesting we should try to recreate the Chinese tea-house experience - outside one or two cosmopolitan London hotels the cultural gap is unbridgeably wide.

What I am suggesting is that most pubs' non-alcoholic offer falls woefully short of the alcoholic one. It is in every host's interest to remedy that deficiency, particularly given the opportunity for winning new custom that the smoke-ban brings. There's nothing intrinsically miserable or shameful in spending an evening drinking good tea or coffee, a range of interesting mineral waters, freshly pressed fruit juices, or outstanding cordials and bottled soft drinks produced nowadays by companies such as Bottle Green or Fentiman's.

If, as I suspect, the future is one where less rather than more alcohol is drunk by most people, pubs catering as effectively for those who don't want to drink alcohol - as for those who do - will stay the course best.