In the mountain trek of Nepal, a teahouse offers both food and overnight stay. So, a teahouse in the mountain of Nepal literally means a hotel in a big city.
But what is a teahouse? For those who are not familiar with this term, it is a small house or can be called a cottage that provides bed and breakfast services to the trekkers. It is the same as a hotel in a city. However, both lunch and dinner are also available in these teahouses. So, most trekkers who are trekking in Nepal prefer to have breakfast and dinner at the same teahouse, while they eat lunch in a tea house somewhere on the trail.
In Everest, teahouse accommodation is most popular because all the trails of the Everest region offer teahouses. But if you are going to climb a peak, then you need to accommodate in camping from the initial base camp of the mountain.
So, it would be appropriate to call it a teahouse trekking as most of the days, it involves beginning and ending in small villages alongside the way where few tea houses of various types are located. They can be identified by the large signs and boards outside the doors.
In a teahouse trek, you will get to communicate with local people and explore their cultures in a friendly environment. So, we highly recommend this trek for everyone.
A few lists of villages in Everest Base Camp Trek that offer tea house accommodation are:
- Lukla
- Phakding
- Manjo
- Jorsalle
- Namche,
- Phortse
- Tengboche
- Pangboche
- Dingboche
- Pheruche
- Lobuche
- Gorakshep
Room, Showers, Electricity, and Charging Points
A typical teahouse provides basic comforts providing basic amenities with humble behavior. Most of the tea houses in EBC offer twin-shared rooms having separate beds; and make a mattress, a pillow, and blanket available for each bed. You can expect a hot shower, electricity to charge your electronic devices such as mobile, camera, etc in a good or well-organized tea house.
As you go higher, there you will find very limited tea houses and the weather will be very cold at night. So, we recommend you bring your own sleeping bag along with some other necessary trekking gear.
Most of the teahouses provide small devices charging plugins by charging 2-5 US dollars.
Meals in a Teahouse
Generally, a tea house in the mountain area provides basic and limited options for food items. But nowadays, most popular trekking routes like Everest Base Camp Trek, Annapurna Circuit Trek, Annapurna Base Camp Trek, etc. provide a large choice of food items with beverages also.
You can taste veg and non-veg both items. But we suggest you stay away from non-veg items as they usually tend not to be fresh. Because no animal can be slaughtered in the mountain area because of the Sherpas’ religious beliefs. So, all the non-veg products are carried up to tea houses taking over many days.
Basically, rice, bread, porridge, etc are served with vegetables like lentil soup. It generally forms the national dish of Nepal – Dal Bhat.
Eating traditional rice, vegetable soup, and curry with eggs in the morning will be beneficial which helps you to get well-nourished to face any ridge, peak, and pass.
