Why breakfast is the right meal to build a day around
Lunch and dinner in Beijing have been reorganised for visitors. Breakfast has not. It is still eaten standing, still sold from counters that open long before the shops, and still built on things that foreigners tend to find strange for exactly one mouthful and then genuinely crave. It is also the only meal where the city's own people outnumber the visitors by a wide margin, which is why we start before seven.
First stop - the fermented drink
Douzhi is the liquid left behind when mung beans are milled for starch, and it is allowed to ferment. Served warm or cold, it is sour, faintly vegetal, and completely unlike anything else you will drink in China. Beijingers drink it with jiaohuan - a crisp, airy fried ring of dough - and a dish of pickles, and the combination is not random: the fat of the ring and the salt of the pickle are what make the sourness work. Your guide will order it for you and will not pretend it is easy the first time. Most travellers come around by the third sip.
Second stop - the thickened offal dishes
Two dishes carry the old city's breakfast identity. Chaogan is made with pork liver and intestine in a garlicky, starch-thickened gravy, served in a small bowl and eaten with a spoon alongside steamed buns; it is deliberately a small portion, because it is strong. Luzhu huoshao simmers pork intestine and lung with pieces of unsweetened wheat cake in a dark broth - a working man's dish in origin, and still priced like one. Between stops there is doubao, tea and the sesame pastries called shaobing. Your host explains the difference between what a Beijinger eats on a weekday and what they eat on a day off, which is where the real menu is.
Late morning - the market behind the breakfast
Breakfast in Beijing is a supply chain before it is a cuisine, so we walk into the wet market that serves the neighbourhood. There the conversation changes from dishes to produce: what is in season this week, how the city's cabbages get stored, where the freshwater fish in the tanks come from, and why the pickle shop next door has more varieties than any restaurant menu. It is the least staged hour of the day and, for most travellers, the one they remember.
Lunch
A simple northern lunch, chosen to sit lightly after a morning of eating.
Walking and pace
Two to three kilometres of flat walking, entirely at street level, with the vehicle moving with you so that you can stop at any point. Vegetarians can be looked after, but tell us in advance: the classic Beijing breakfast is built on offal, wheat and pickles, and the alternatives need arranging rather than assuming.
Meals
Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation
Day programme - no hotel night included.
