There’s an English word that begins with “b”. It literally means “female dog”. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. The word has retained its full force during the many years since I first learnt it, while other “b” words, such as “bloody”, have lost theirs. Secularism and permissiveness have prevailed. But even as the old lexicon of oaths and obscenities fades into quaintness, there is actually a whole group of curses that retain the capacity to shock. These are the terms that will lose a broadcaster his/her job; the terms that imply/constitute...

It’s pomelo season in Jiangnan. That pleases me. Even if you don’t know its (obscure) English name, you know the fruit. It hangs, moon-like, from trees in parks and campuses everywhere. You can eat the windfalls, but they’re a little too sour. Thankfully, bigger, more-user-friendly versions of these yellow globes appear in stores. Open them up to find segments each as big and tactile as a Nokia phone. These segments are red (slightly more expensive) or “yellow” (cheaper and just as good), partitioned by a tough white pith. Unlike, say,...

I’ve used this column in the past to vent my criticism of the tea sold in China’s supermarkets. Today’s Strainer marks no retreat. There are usually two locations for tea in the supermarket. There’s the loose tea; often located next to the pickles, stored in a similar way. Those glass jars, containing leaves of indeterminate age, are not the fitting place for happy tea; light is every bit as ravaging for green tea as heat or oxygen. And those unimaginative selections of tea, usually Long Jing , invariably smell as...

HRH E II R, Queen Elizabeth the Second. Her name has appeared in these pages twice before now.  And why would a Chinese tea column be concerned with the former monarch of the United Kingdom? Actually, Strainer first mentioned her as the name of a donkey ridden on a trip to Yunnan. .  And then there was the column about Chinese tea sellers seeking actively validation for their product through international celebrities. The story goes that Queen Elizabeth II, when introduced to a new variety of oolong tea from Taiwan, described it as...