Traditions of Chengdu
The home of Sichuan cooking and the teahouse, a city that takes its time and its chilli seriously.
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan and one of the most relaxed large cities in China. Teahouses with bamboo chairs, mahjong and ear cleaners are part of daily life. Its cuisine is known for the numbing and hot flavour called mala, from chilli and Sichuan pepper. The city is also home to pandas and a rich opera and puppet tradition.
The teahouse and the stage
Locals spend long afternoons in teahouses with a gaiwan cup that is refilled with hot water again and again. Sichuan opera is famous for bian lian, face-changing, in which masks switch in a flash. During the Lantern Festival the parks are filled with lights, and in the Chengdu temple fair, people go out to see lanterns and eat dumplings.
At the table
Mapo tofu, twice-cooked pork, dan dan noodles and the Chengdu hotpot are the city's pride. The pepper, huajiao, gives a tingling effect. Many meals begin with cold plates and end with sweet glutinous rice cakes. Breakfast is wontons in chilli oil and soy milk.
Signature traditions of Chengdu
Also part of it, and being written: Sichuan cuisine (The cooking of Sichuan.), Mapo doufu (The spicy tofu dish.), Lantern Festival (The fifteenth day of the new year.), Sichuan pepper (The numbing spice.).
A trail idea for Chengdu
- Heming Teahouse in People's Park Sit under the trees and be left alone.
- Jinli Street Snack on old-style street food.
- Dujiangyan An ancient irrigation system outside the city.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Opening hours, markets and festival dates change; check locally before travelling. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
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Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Sichuan opera: No machine-readable author provided. Dice~commonswiki assumed (based o, CC BY-SA 3.0, source