Burmese tea shop culture comes to India: Try Myanmar’s paukse, palata and pulled teas
The restaurant chain Burma Burma is launching a limited-edition menu across India featuring traditional Burmese tea shop staples like paukse and palata. The initiative aims to introduce Indian diners to the cultural significance of Myanmar's tea shop social rituals.
Why it matters
This highlights the growing trend of culinary diplomacy and the integration of regional Southeast Asian food cultures into the Indian urban dining landscape.
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 | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
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