Historical Story of Xishku Church 1901 Cafe, one of the Ten famous Cafe shops in Beijing

The cafe in the church has a history of more than one hundred years.

With the development of coffee industry in China, coffee can be said to have penetrated into every corner of our lives. Now, you can see cafes in hospitals, police stations, and even prisons abroad. In China, there is a place where there is a cafe even where it has appeared in history textbooks.

There is a cafe called 1901 caf é in the Xishku Catholic Church in Beijing, which dates back to the forty-second year of Kangxi (AD 1703).

In 1703, because two teachers cured Kangxi's illness, they were given a piece of land to build a church, which was the predecessor of the present-day Sishku Catholic Church, called the Salvation Church. After the second Opium War, the bishop built a tall Gothic building on the site of the North Hall, which displeased Cixi and Tongzhi, and then moved to Xishku, which was completed in 1888.

The events that make the Sishku church be recorded in the history textbook also have to be counted as the Hishiku church incident. In the church of Xishku, it used to be the place where the Qing army fought fiercely with the boxers.

Some basic information about the cafe can be found on Baidu Encyclopedia. 1901 Cafe was originally known as Channel, but it was renamed 1901 because the church was built in 1901. The building where the 1901 Cafe is located is transformed from a wing of Sishiku Cathedral.

After the passage of more than 100 years, the appearance of the church has been preserved. The three-story baroque building has an antique interior. No matter entering or passing by, you can feel the long history of the church.

1901 Cafe is located at 101st Xi'anmen Nei Street, Xicheng District, Beijing. Before the Cultural Revolution, the three-story building where 1901 Cafe was located was a dormitory for the clergy.

Today, the entire three-story building serves as the venue for the 1901 Cafe, with the first floor for ordering food and the second and third floors for dining. The second floor is bright and spacious. The third floor is a slightly dimly lit attic.

As the interior of the whole building is made of wood, the sound made by people walking on the stairs and floor doubles the feeling of a long time ago.

As can be seen from many pictures, although the light of the attic on the third floor is dark, it is a quiet place for me to stay alone, and it is also a good place to talk with people close to me.

Walking on the street and opening a large number of recommended sign-in software, those recommended and clocked in are full of cement style, black-and-white simple style, and Internet celebrity cafes decorated in Iraqi style. If you take a closer look, there is no historical details or characteristics to speak of. Coffee, which already belongs to slow things, is pulled into a space that belongs to fast.

Although coffee as an imported thing, the history of consumption in China since modern times is not long, but most of them do not have their own characteristics, and most of them choose to follow the eyes and tongues of the public. When asked what is different from others, he is speechless. In the end, because he did not have his own characteristics, he ended up drifting with the current and gradually disappeared.

In this era when cafes come and go quickly, why not find a place full of historical stories and sit down and enjoy the passage of time.

Photo Source: Internet

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