I owe you a big one! Here's my story for everyone.

I went to Beijing in January 2008 on a business trip for 2 weeks. It was a dream come true because I love to travel and my company was paying for everything. My last weekend there on my very last day I had made plans to see the hutongs to the north east of the forbidden city. As I was about to take off two Chinese students (from Peking university) approached me and started talking to me and asked if they could walk along with me as they wanted to practice their English. I told them I was going towards the Hutongs (I hate being rude to seemingly nice people) and they could come along. They said that there are also hutongs to the south east of the forbidden city just around the corner and they could show me around. I really wanted to stick to my plan (by myself) but again I hate coming off as rude to nice people so I just gave in.

They walked me through some random little hutong streets. By then I had been stopping very frequently to take photos but they just stuck around. Finally after about an hour or so we emerged on some road. They asked me if I wanted to just have some tea with them. I said sure why not (though I really was tired of them by now).

They lead me into this tea place into a room with a wooden tea table where they asked me how many different types of tea I wanted to sample. I said 7. A lady starts pouring out tea for me as they start giving me information about how one tea cures cancer and another tea fixes all heart problems. By now I was already annoyed that I had lost a bit of time. Finally we finished with the tea. I asked them if I could take a photo of the room we were in and they said it was considered "rude" in chinese culture to do so. Then the bill came out. The guy and the girl looked really shocked and kept exchanging looks with each other and looking at the bill. Then they handed it to me and asked me if I thought it looked OK. No matter what way I computed the bill, it didn't. They had essentially counted 50 yuan for each type of tea, then multiplied it by the number of different teas I sampled, multiplied by the number of people and then added some charge on top of it. It came to 1260 yuan (183$ approx). I was just shocked. The other two looked as shocked as me and I remember them telling me they were just poor students. The way they'd suggested the tea shop had been so casual that I still truly believed they were honest folks.

Being an idiot, I offered to pay the whole thing to spare them the embarrassment. As I walked out, I was not only feeling ...... about the wasted time but also the money. It took me 2 more hours after that to get rid of those guys. I felt so ...... about the whole experience I was just trying to forget it and enjoy my last few hours in Beijing -- but it really left a bad taste in the mouth.

After returning back to the US, I'd remember it occasionally. You have to realize that I had a sneaking suspicion that the guy and girl may have been frauds and involved in teh scheme but the whole thing still seemed so impulsive that I was inclined to offer them the benefit of the doubt like the original poster of this thread. It also never occurred to me to call the credit card company. However I did hold back the receipt along with all my other Beijing receipts for company expense filing. One day I was looking at some google search results about china (dont remember what) and I saw a page entitled, 'The Chinese tea ceremony scam'. My heart sank. I reluctantly opened the page and my worst fears were confirmed. I had been trying to tell myself that I had probably had some superior quality tea all along. About a month later my boss told me I'd be going to Beijing again.

I flew in a week ago and remembered to bring my receipt. I had seen your post about going back in there. I asked someone to write down a threat about calling the police on a piece of paper.

I went there THIS evening. Finding the place took 2 hours of randomly walking around. I walked in and I asked the young lady there if the place was called Su Zizhu something Tea House. After she said yes, I told her the story and threated to call the cops. I told them that the olympics was around the corner so the cops would shut them down for sure. She already seemed a bit taken aback. Remembering their phobia of cameras, I walked outside and took a photo of the store while making a big show of it. Then I went inside and aimed the camera at her and she got really scared and asked me to stop. She called someone instantly on the phone. It was the owner of the store. He wanted to talk to me on the phone. I didn't even have to tell him the story. He asked me how much money it was and when this incident happened. I told him it was 6 months ago and over 1200 yuan. He told me they'd credit me the money on my credit card. I said I wanted it in cash. He said he'd send a guy with the money. The guy showed up in 60 seconds with over 1200 yuan in crisp bills. The whole thing had barely taken over 5 minutes and I didn't even have to yell or argue. Unbelievable! I made sure the money was real, gave them the receipt, and walked away without looking back. :-)

Sorry about the long message but I really hope this helps someone like the other dude's message helped me. KEEP YOUR RECEIPT! Go back and tell them you will get them shut down through your Chinese friends in highly-placed places. Start taking photos of the place (in a noticeable way) and then the people in the place.

Hope this helps!