In Myanmar, you can eat your tea. The country is unusual in the tea drinking world for its laphet, or fermented tea leaves, that are eaten, often tossed into a salad with tomatoes, garlic, chillies, sesame or peanuts. Tea is food here in a very literal sense. And the tea shop, where cups of sweet, milky laphet yay (traditional Burmese milk tea) arrive alongside breads, curries and fried snacks, has long been one of the most ordinary and important rooms in Burmese life.There might be a retired teacher catching up with an old colleague at one table, students sharing homework at another, and monks or street hawkers eating breakfast at another. A football match might even play on television.
Hot and cold teas from the menu
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Special Arrangement
Myanmar’s tea shops have traditionally been democratic pockets for conversations, sweet rendezvous, arguments, making plans and exchanging opinions. The Myanmar Tea Association describes them as a kind of “parliament of the common people”.It is this everyday world that Burma Burma is attempting to bring to the table this August with PaukSe & Palata: Windows to Burma, a limited edition menu devoted to the humble tea shop staples of Burma. The menu, available till August 31 across Burma Burma’s restaurants in Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad, is also available through Swiggy and Zomato.The menu takes that familiar grammar and gives it a contemporary Indian restaurant’s vocabulary. There are three paukse, four palata preparations, desserts, Burmese pulled teas and house made sodas. But the more interesting proposition is cultural: to understand a country through one of its everyday rituals followed by its common people.
