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Tea, Dim Sum, and the New Year
Written by Winnie Yu, co-founder of Teance
The clock has just turned to 2010, and during this holiday season one of our favorite celebratory pastimes is dim sum with family and friends. Dim sum is the original small plate meal for the Chinese, and hundreds, if not thousands, of choices, are usually available. We would enjoy such feasting from now all the way through the Lunar New Year in Febuary.
Dim Sum literally means 'a bit of heart', and so, this meal is for social connections, though the food you enjoy during this process matters a lot. The dim sum meal, which takes place anytime between 6am to 2pm, is also called 'Yum Cha'(literally drink tea) as the tea that is served is equally important in the old days. The dim sum restaurants were originally called 'Cha Lau' or teahouse, although most of these places served their tea free of charge. The teas enjoyed here are usually not the kind you would expect in a 'tea room' or 'tea shop', where Gong Fu style tea made expertly are served. At the dim sum teahouse, as long as the teas are decent and the dim sum superb and one can eat for 3 straight hours, a happy atmosphere is engendered for forging and renewing your social connections.
Today, dim sum parlours are everywhere in China and Hong Kong, as it is a uniquely Cantonese tradition, though areas like Shanghai and Beijing have also begun to offer these with a northern food twist. Dim sum parlours can be found in major metropolitan cities in the U.S. nowadays as well, as anywhere the Chinese go, they must have dim sum. The choice of food is endless. Old Cantonese favorites normally involve some kind of seafood dumpling or wonton, and the grain of choice is rice; congee, rice noodles, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, rice noodle rolls, cellophane thin rice dumplings. A respectable dim sum house would feature at least 100 choices, though many would boast of well over 500, sometimes over a thousand, choices! The fun about dim sum is the a la carte approach. You never know what gets wheeled to you in the form of a hot steaming cart, with the attendant yelling the name of the items on her cart with the top of her lungs. Yes, the noise, the frenzy, the sights and smells and tastes, the frequent interruptions by the carts, and the constant filling of your teapots all add to the dim sum experience. One word of caution: For a great experience, bring your own tea.
A traditional Cantonese dim sum house serves Pu-Erh tea, as that is the tea of choice for digestion; the trick is the more Pu-Erh you drink, the more food you can eat in a sitting, sometimes lasting for 2 to 3 hours. However, many of the more ordinary American dim sum houses will serve just jasmine tea, and that is not quite the experience we would wish on you. Personally I have experimented with aged Pu-Erh, Tikuanyin, Phoenix Oolongs, White teas, and Keemun. The top tea of choice was quite unexpected: High Mountain Dark Roast Oolong from Taiwan. Taiwan does not really have a tradition of dim sum, and so, it was a pleasant surprise that their oolong, after all, paired the best with all the hundreds of varieties of dim sum. A superior tea is a superior tea in any setting and can only greatly enhance the experience. However, the safest choice is still Pu-Erh, whether aged, Tuocha, or any other form. It cuts the grease, helps to lower the cholesterol from all the seafood, and aids digestion so you can keep eating.
You can order the Ha Gao( Shrimp dumpling), Siu Mai (pork dumpling, open face), and Cha Siu Bao (BBQ pork buns), and those are certainly ubiquitous in every dim sum parlour. But for an authentic Cantonese dim sum experience, the following is a glossary of popular items to order, in Cantonese:
1. Dao Fu Fa: Soft tofu with ginger syrup (vegetarian)
2. Jook: Congee with usually preserved duck egg and shredded pork
3. Ha Cheong: Rice noodle roll with prawns
4. Nor Mai Gai: Sticky rice with various meat fillings, wrapped in lotus leaf steamed
5. Siu Long Bao: Actually a Shanghainese steamed bao, filled with crab and pork and very hot
6. Jin Dui: Sesame Balls with black sesame filling (vegetarian)
7. Bak Won Fong Jao: white chicken feet served in wine sauce, kind of gelatinous
8. Lor Bak Go: Radish cake, pan fired (sometimes vegetarian)
9. Yu Chi Gao: Shark's Fin Dumpling
10. Dou Miu Gao: Pea Sprout Dumpling (vegetarian)
And after all of this, if you still forgot to bring your own tea, order Bo-Lay from the house, Cantonese for Pu-Erh, and that should be a fairly safe tea choice! Good luck, invite at least 6 friends, and enjoy one of the favorite New Year's traditions for the Chinese.
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