Pilsen stands for a global standard in Pilsner-style beer. While in the city, I joined an award-winning 100-minute brewery tour at Pilsner Urquell, where this world-famous beer is produced. “Urquell,” meaning original source, refers to the brewery’s origins in 1842 — thanks to a beer expert from the southern German state of Bavaria — and the tour highlights how the beer is still brewed here in exactly the same way today.

Employing around 1,000 people, the largest brewery in the Czech Republic belongs to the Japanese Asahi Group since 2017. The tour ended with a tasting of unfiltered, unpasteurised draft beer in the cellar — probably the best beer I’ve ever had. The brewery has a building, where experimental microbreweries are housed, with one of them producing a beer with Yuzu-flavor- truly a Czech-Japanese cultural fusion!

 After the tour, I headed to a tea house in the old city. Yes — a tea house! Being a big tea lover, I had heard that the Czech Republic has a unique tea culture. In larger cities, you can find so-called tea houses serving many varieties of tea, including Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, South American, and European. Much like a coffee shop, you sit down and enjoy a tea of your choice, alone or with friends — but Czech tea houses are often far more relaxing, sometimes even offering water pipes.　

The tea house I visited had a large seating area where you take off your shoes and sit on cushions on the floor. It was a cultural blend of Asian, Oriental, and Bohemian influences. The room was dimly lit, and the atmosphere was extremely calming — indeed bohemian in the artistic and unconventional sense. There was no pressure whatsoever to order more or to leave after a certain time.

In another corner of the room, a couple was kissing, giggling, and flirting the whole time. Nibbling on Middle Eastern sweets, halva, I sank into the round, fluffy cushions, turning the pages of the book in my hands. My kukicha from Japan was excellent. It was a moment of pure bliss.

What an enriching experience it was to immerse myself in cultures surrounding two beverages that could hardly be further apart. These are only my first fragments of Czech culture — and I’d love to explore many more.

Travel moments like this continue to inspire my intercultural curiosity.