The Central Plains Area was the center of national politics and culture in the Northern Song Dynasty. It was not one of the areas which produced tea, but one of the areas which largely consumed tea. The tea culture of it, especially in the bigger cities, was very prosperous, and it had become the most advanced region of the whole country on the tea culture. Rinsing tea was the most prevalent fashion of drinking tea in the Northern Song Dynasty. The popularization of drinking tea produced some influence on the social customs at that time. The people began to take drinking tea as one means of social intercommunications. Compared to the Tang Dynasty, the utensils of drinking tea had changed greatly either in the Northern Song Dynasty.
