Friday, March 21, 2008

Tea and Pantyhose

The concept of the Hong Kong 'dai pai dong' milk tea epitomises so much of the Hong Kong experience. One generally does not think twice about the humble cup of tea; but when it comes to the HK style of milk tea, this drink is no small matter. In fact, preparation of the tea is considered a culinary art; there are chefs that specialise in this, and such tea chefs are highly sought after as, like many traditional and cultural arts, upcoming young talent is few and far between. In fact, the art is being replaced by chemical concoctions that merely simulate the taste of the tea, and packaged for the convenience that is now expected by and necessary for the typical time-poor HK local or expat. The pace of HK life is so fast, working locals do not have the time to sit down and enjoy a cup of properly prepared milk tea, and when there is demand for instant milk tea, there will be readily available, mass-produced supply.

The simple fact that a cup of milk tea is considered as a culinary art goes to show how big a role food plays in HK Chinese culture. No food or drink is considered too small to be an art requiring years of training and experience. It also illustrates the fusion of the Western and Chinese culture, which is exactly what HK is, given its colonial history under the British after the Opium Wars. The tea itself is a secret blend of English and Asian tealeaves, individually tuned by each tea chef, and put through an extensive process of brewing, straining (in a pantyhose-like filter), and pouring from height to increase the amount of air in the beverage. The tea is then brewed with evaporated milk, not fresh milk, which illustrates the role of dairy in the HK diet. That is, fresh dairy produce was not readily available until recent times, but the British could not forgo this luxury hence the proliferation of processed dairy products such as evaporated, condensed, and powdered milk in the HK diet. Chinese tea is taken without milk and unsweetened; sweet milk tea is purely a Western construct.

My grandpa stubbornly insists on ritually going out for two cups of milk tea everyday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which tells me that HK milk tea has been around for a long time. Hopefully, this delicious beverage will continue to be brewed according to the secret recipes of the tea chefs. However, with youth opting for the safe and stable careers offered by University degrees, the future of this culinary art unique to HK is potentially at the mercy of the test tubes in food labs hidden amongst the towers of the world's financial bigwigs.


http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSHKG19611520071227

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