“Thank you for your tea.” “I just tried it.” “It has a very good taste and smell.” As a proper tea nut, this is the kind of WeChat message I’m used to sending and receiving.  But this was odd. I hadn’t given any tea to my colleague’s girlfriend. So her message made no sense. Then I remembered. Yes, I had given them some curry leaves earlier in the week.  With the huge minimum order of curry leaves purchasable on Taobao, I had given half to the only other person I know nearby who loves Indian...

Well, I just don’t think it happened like that. It relies on too many coincidences. It can’t be the true origin of tea-drinking, surely. For the emperor, Shen Nong (神農), to have received a stray, falling leaf of camellia sinensis in his cup of boiling water relies on that tea plant being very tall, or the weather very windy. It’s the height thing. And why do these apocryphal breakthroughs always happen to bigwigs like emperors, not to ordinary folk and earnest experimenters? Doesn’t wash with me. But if the Emperor’s cup was the...

So I’m a red risk all of a sudden. It’s a shock for someone who’s conjured only green codes from so many apps this past quarter-of-a-decade. My red code will be a shock for some reading this, too.  Perhaps, blissfully green for as long as such colours existed, you just experienced a twinge in your buttocks, before remembering that, no, printed paper cannot transmit pathogens from some guy in Shanghai, and nor can an LCD screen. Mindful of the two negative results after my near-exposure and before my colour-slander, it’s not concerning me...

So you drink coffee? Fair enough. You’re not alone. It’s an easy mistake to make. There’s plenty of time to remedy your error. If you’re reading this here in China, you have ample opportunity to switch yourself on to a better pick-me-up.  Let me try and make a pitch. I need to start with that smell you’re emitting as a coffee drinker. Coffee-roasting smells great. Coffee brewing smells great. Luckin smells delightful. You probably don’t, not unless you chased up your last cup of Joe with a gallon of water. Unless you...