Pantyhose Tea, Anyone?
Sunday afternoon is a perfect time drop by Lan Fong Yuen, the famous daai paai dong in Central.
Renowned for its "silk stocking milk tea" (絲襪奶茶), also known as pantyhose tea, the popular but tiny 60-year-old restaurant is a beehive of activity: customers queue for tables while staff hustle back and forth, taking or delivering orders. The place buzzes with chatter; it's no place to go if you crave peace and quiet.
Yet the experience is oddly relaxing just the same: with a bowl of spicy vermicelli soup noodles, two thick slices of toast and a cup of the special tea as an afternoon snack, it's easy to forget your troubles for a while. Not a long while, mind you: when the joint is busy, occupying a table for a long period of time is frowned upon, unless you keep eating and drinking, that is.
But Lan Fong Yuen is at risk of losing its little green booth on the corner of Gage Street (one of only 28 daai paai dong left in Hong Kong), and if that happens, the indoor restaurant may go with it. Current legislation dictates that when the license holder of a daai paai dong dies, the license can't be passed to another person. Owner Lam Muk-ho is now 83, and even though his son Lam Chun-yip is working hard to maintain the establishment, the loss of the daai paai dong may cost Hong Kong another tradition.
"The government does not care about our culture and history but I do," the son said. "The booth represents our family's most cherished memories and I am going to do all I can to preserve it. If the government insists on closing our place down, I will not dismiss the possibility of shipping the whole dai pai dong to another place in Southeast Asia."
He said places like Macao and Singapore had done much more to preserve their heritage and most of the famous dishes and drinks served in Hong Kong restaurants, such as wonton noodles and herbal teas, came from Guangdong.
"It is so ironic that the government allows Starbucks and other overseas chains to be opened everywhere when it so much wants to phase us out."
He said the government's classic way to preserve dai pai dong was to put a model in a museum. But he wants "living heritage".
"The only argument officials have is hygiene. But my father always counters that by saying not a single person has fallen sick in six decades."
Lan Fong Yuen is well known to locals and tourists alike (it's listed in many guide books as a must-visit destination); actor Chow Yun-fat is a regular.
The secret of its success lies within its pantyhose tea. The elder Mr Lam calls his café a "shrine for creamy tea fanatics".
I'd have to agree; the cup I had was smooth indeed.
So how did the milk tea get its nickname? From the secret blend of five Sri Lankan teas repeatedly filtered through a long silk-like bag resembling pantyhose, which removes residues and impurities. Once ready, the tea is mixed with evaporated milk and served either hot or cold. Over the decades the technique has been refined into an artform:
Five or six large kettles, each containing a big, finely knit filter stained burnt amber by tea leaves, brew away in a special hut set up outside the shop.
At the first sign of boiling over, a kettle is lifted from the fire, the filter taken out, and the steaming, ruby liquid is poured through the filter into a jug. The strained tea is then immediately poured back into the same filtered kettle and brewed again.
The beverage is ready only after this process has been repeated seven to eight times ...
"This way, the color is evenly distributed and the tea feels smooth to your throat, like aged wine" ... Inferior creamy teas are bitter and astringent, and sometimes leave an unpleasant sour taste in the mouth ...
An incorrect amount of evaporated milk will also make the drink cloying, which is common in cheap milk tea found in small restaurants all over Hong Kong: one of the reasons I never order it.
But Lan Fong Yuen does it right, even if the tea isn't served in fine china: you get a thick ceramic cup if you order it hot, and a tall plastic tumbler if you order it on ice. This isn't the place to go if you like to drink tea with your pinky sticking out; tea snobs need not apply.
If silk stocking milk tea isn't your thing, you can always try the creamy yin-yang coffee-tea concoction, or perhaps lemon coffee.
Should you find yourself in Central, give Lan Fong Yuen a try; you too could become a convert to one of Hong Kong's most cherished drinks.
To get there: walk down Queen's Road Central towards Sheung Wan until you come to the Mid-Levels Escalator; take the escalator to the Lyndhurst Terrace exit, then walk down the stairs. Lan Fong Yuen is on the corner of Gage Street, which begins at the intersection of Lyndhurst Terrace and Cochrane Street.
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