Suntory’s bottled “Black Oolong Tea” is an institution, as well loved in China as in its native Japan. And here it is, refrigerated and available for purchase, in the UK. Always the stingy skinflint, I resent paying three times the price when the main ingredient, water, is on tap and essentially free. But here it is. Nice to know.    I buy a packet of oolong leaves instead. This is an Asian supermarket in Cardiff. These stores are easier to find than ever, thanks to the steady stream of Chinese students...

We’d bought quite a nice one, actually.  It had made sense because we were only the second people ever to have lived in that apartment. Everything was very modern and sleek in there, though it was also restrictively small.  We’d previously satisfied ourselves with cheap water dispensers, usually in the ghastly blue and white of those tracksuit high school uniforms (when will these trends end?).  This time, we’d plumped for something black and dark gold, something like real furniture. Tall, free-standing. Space for paper cups down there. When we moved again, it came...

I would normally have said no. But I was all out of tea that day. Actually, I welcomed that big cup of coffee after another poor night’s sleep. The drink was ice cold, mercifully unsweetened and wrapped in the green of Starbucks’ gentle gorgon.  Among international brands, Starbucks is bucking a trend here, its China arm remaining wholly-US owned after other fast-food concerns have sold out to local firms. Starbucks has not splintered nor run away yet. So it’s logical that my foreign colleague chose this brand for his gift to the...

You’re familiar with the rule by now. Do not carry your own liquids allowed into the airport departure lounge.  … except that I was drinking an awesome green tea I’d brought with me from China. And no one was asking me to surrender my cup. How long, I wondered, could I keep this up?  Right up to the boarding gate, it turns out.    Actually, it’s quite the comfort to have tea, especially green, in one’s hand while being herded through an airport. But why haven’t any of the other liquids in my...