"I long ago wrote the drink off as a cheap indulgence, whose satisfying sugar rush quickly metabolizes into lingering regret. That changed last fall, when I visited China for the first time in years and encountered the country's new generation of milk-tea chains-establishments that sell not only beverages but also imagined worlds."
"At Chayan Yuese, a chain whose aesthetic celebrates the culture of antiquity, the staff greeted me as xiaozhu ('your ladyship'). I ordered a 'valley orchid latte,' and a brochure in the style of ink-wash painting instructed me to start with the 'mountain peak' of the drink's milky foam, before eventually reaching the 'foothills' of richly mixed Ceylon tea."
"At Chagee, which uses cups printed with cobalt patterns reminiscent of blue-and-white porcelain, choosing a product on the menu was like selecting a literary adventure: I settled on a jasmine milk tea named for Bo Ya, a legendary musician of the Spring and Autumn period, some twenty-five hundred years ago, who is said to have broken his zither after the death of the only friend who he thought understood his music."
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