Now the baking days are behind us, we can say it’s been another hot summer, with one tiny difference;  Things have heated up in the cold tea sector. For a long time, there was only Suntory (三得利) with its iconic pair of Oolong SKUs: WITH-sugar (red characters) and WITHOUT (blue). These black/brown bottles have a following (of fans and imitators) to rival Laoganma (老干召) sauce.  Traditionally, the remainder of the “tea” bottles on the c-store shelf were of the lemon-tea or the milk-tea type, all stashed with sugar, of course.  Actually, those teas...

We can never borrow each other’s mouths. I will never know what it means to taste the way you do, nor you me. Then again, perhaps if we could try that, we would no longer be the sufficiently the same people we originally were to make the new observation meaningful... Anyway, that imperfect empathy is part of the tragedy of writing and reading about food and drink. I also often wonder if my speculations on taste may be even less meaningful to someone who has a Y chromosome. In Classical legend, there...

Delicious, isn’t it? Remember the smell when you unpeeled your first credit card? If you have bought electronics, you will know the excitement of transparent sleeves and instruction booklets. Let us also mention polyethylene. If I write here about the smell of new bin liners, you will experience something quite specific in your “inner nose”. Polyethylene. It is the softer plastics that seem more generous to give off their scent. PVC raincoats and toy umbrellas. We all know the aromatic explosion from a roll of bubble wrap. Tiny seams of injected modernity. It...

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...