This day, 23 September, in 1997, the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund opened in Hong Kong, as the first large-scale international...
I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. There they both were. And it was my wife who’d put them there.
Strewth. It wasn’t even that one of these dishes was left-overs from the previous day; no, she had consciously cooked both of them, set them there for the family to actually eat.
Okay, it was a long time ago that she’d delivered the warning. Maybe she’s forgotten it by now. Or maybe I’m the one who misremembered. Anyway, here goes.
Fish is not to be paired with sweet potato. Harmless individually, these two...
“Thank you for your tea.”
“I just tried it.”
“It has a very good taste and smell.”
As a proper tea nut, this is the kind of WeChat message I’m used to sending and receiving.
But this was odd. I hadn’t given any tea to my colleague’s girlfriend. So her message made no sense.
Then I remembered. Yes, I had given them some curry leaves earlier in the week.
With the huge minimum order of curry leaves purchasable on Taobao, I had given half to the only other person I know nearby who loves Indian...
It’s not yellow. Let’s get that out of the way first.
The leaves are as green as Act One in Sonic. And the drink; well, green tea makes a pale yellow drink anyway, so there’s no room for differentiation there.
It all reminds me of that ad for Canada’s Red Rock cider; “It’s not red and there are no rocks in it”.
But, for Westerners like me, there’s perhaps always been a need for “Yellow Tea” to exist.
Fascinated by the variety of Camellia Sinensis; from oxidised to unoxidised, with additional parameters like...
瓜子 (guazi) or “Melon Seed” is the name of an online used-car selling platform.
It’s an example of how brand conventions have evolved in China beyond fruits (Apple, Blackberry) to the names of dried food commodities (Xiaomi, Sesame, etc.) It’s also an example of a shift from branded physical products to services.
Actually, the subject of this month’s Strainer is not a tech startup or a financial service. It’s not even the humble melon seed itself (a fine Autumn snack); it’s a variety of green tea that is also named 瓜片...
