They Still Have Andalusi Tea Houses in Spain

Beginner (A2) · Travel & Geography · 12 min · Premium

There is a tea house in Toledo called دار الشاي. The house of tea.

It is not a café in the modern sense. It is a place people gather to sit together, talk, laugh and drink tea, and the whole idea of it comes from Al Andalus, from the centuries when Arabs and Muslims ruled this part of Spain. The decoration inside is Andalusi: carved plaster, columns, arches, low warm light. One man was sitting on something that was definitely not a chair and I still do not know what it was.

It was also extremely noisy. People in Spain talk loudly, in the cafés and the bars and the restaurants, and I love that about the place.

Then the old Jewish quarter, and a very old synagogue with a white door, lion statues and a small window. There was a Palestinian flag on it. I had seen Palestinian flags in a lot of places in Spain, but seeing one there surprised me, so I took the photograph.

After that an empty narrow street with nobody in it except me, door after door after door, all houses. Then the big church, and the crowds, and the Christmas market, and the tree, and the lights, and a young woman doing a television interview in the middle of the street.

Simple descriptive Levantine Arabic, around A2. Vocabulary: مقهى, دار الشاي, مجتمعين, الديكور الاندلسي, عمود, قنطره, ضجه, شارع ضيق, فاضي.

This video is part of the premium library. See membership options or browse the free videos.