A tea house or tearoom is a venue centered on drinking tea. Its function varies widely depending on the culture, and some cultures have a variety of distinct tea-centered houses or parlors that all qualify under the English language term "tea house" or "tea room."

In Central Asia this term could refer to Shayhana in Kazakh, Chaykhana in Kyrgyz and Chayhona in Uzbek which literally means a tea room.

In China, a tea house (茶館, "cháguăn" or 茶屋, "cháwū") is traditionally quite similar to the American "cafe", albeit centered around tea rather than coffee. People gather at tea houses to chat, socialize, and enjoy tea. Young people often meet at tea houses for dates. Especially, the Guangdong (Cantonese) style teahouses are very famous abroad, such as in New York, San Francisco, etc. These tea houses not only serve tea, but also dim sum (點心), people can eat different kinds of food when they drink tea. People call these kinds of tea houses “茶樓, chálou”.

In Japanese tradition a tea house can refer to a structure designed for holding Japanese tea ceremonies. This structure and specifically the room in it where the tea ceremony takes place is called chashitsu (茶室^?, literally "tea room"). The architectural space called chashitsu was created for aesthetic and intellectual fulfillment.