Myanmar is the only country in the world that eats tea leaves.
There they are a specialty served fermented with crispy garlic, nuts,
and other vegetables. The dish is called lahpet thoke,
and it is absolutely one of a kind.
I can, of course, just eat the dish, but as this is Great Big Story,
we're gonna go on a little road trip to Myanmar to learn how it's made.
The process for making lahpet takes two to three months and has remained largely
untouched for thousands of years.
After fermentation, lahpet can be preserved for years.
The fermentation process changes the chemical makeup of the tea leaves,
and this unique flavor profile is used in a wide range of Burmese dishes.
Historically, lahpet was used as a peace offering in Warren Kingdoms.
Today it's considered a national delicacy and is shared as a sign of greeting
and hospitality for all sorts of ceremonies.
Solution.
Lucky for me and any other Burmese people living in New York City,
there is a restaurant called Ring Goon on 18th and eighth that serves
traditional Burmese cuisine.
So, I got the lahpet thoke, as well as two other dishes that the staff recommended, I try.
There's the squash tempura, and coconut chicken noodle soup.
This is the fermented tea leaf.
Hmm.
It does have that fermented taste. It's pretty delicate though. Ooh.
It's got like a bit of an aftertaste, actually. That's interesting.
It's really nice. It's really fresh. There's a bunch of cabbage in here,
tomatoes, peanuts.
It kind of just tastes like a really amazing type of cole slaw.
It's got a little bit of that fermented taste in it,
a little bit of heat and a lot of crunch. It's fabulous.
So this one is a squash tempura.
The batter is really, really light crunchy,
and the squash is still a little bit firm, so it's not like a soft bite.
This is very different. Very fabulous.
And this dipping sauce has a lot of tamarind in it, so there's kind of a sour,
sweet vibe going on.
Definitely.
Order, we're going in for the soup. Ooh,
these noodles are thick.
Wow. Wow, wow, wow. What is in this broth?
It doesn't say what's in the broth. It kind of has like a peanut.
The broth is really, I'm gonna ask her, excuse me,
what is in the broth? So confirm that the broth is coconut milk with chicken,
and then a chickpea batter, which makes it brown.
This is totally different. Totally fabulous. 10 out of 10.
I'm leaving what I ordered in the description.
So if you find yourself at a Burmese restaurant,
you'll have a little bit of inspiration on what to order.
And I wanna end with a question in Myanmar, the word for tea is lahpet.
But most of the world calls tea, either chai or tea. I'm curious,
what do you call tea in your country?