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Charmaine Mok

Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world. Sign up now!
How much do we love milk tea? Let us count the ways. With more than 2 million cups consumed every day in Hong Kong alone, the sweet and creamy allure of this drink reveals that it is more than just a solid recipe – it represents an identity that transcends borders. Milk tea, you could say, is in Hong Kong’s DNA.
Around the world, creative upstarts are pouring their hearts into new variations of milk tea, constantly finding new ways to reframe this beloved, ubiquitous working-class staple.
“We hope that Hong Kong-style milk tea means more than just liquid to the new generation,” says millennial milk tea master Alex Leung, who has tapped into a scientific approach to create Mt Waves, a ready-to-drink bottled milk tea brand that has also diversified into tea-flavoured gelato sold at major convenience stores.
Sharing a culture also means crafting solutions and paving the way for accessibility. For Canada-based entrepreneurs Pep So and Stanley Tsui, the lack of quality milk tea in parts of Vancouver led them to launch Kong Tea, a DIY kit consisting of tea leaves, sugar, evaporated milk and a special filter.
Since their launch in December, the pair have seen orders from all over the country – even as far as Nova Scotia on the east coast – reflecting a growing demand for this taste of home.


This evolution of milk tea products via the younger generation is another example of how Hong Kong’s soft power can be steeped in other markets.
“It shows that milk tea is not something old-fashioned and only limited to cha chaan teng,” said one expert, referring to Hong Kong-style cafes.
“People in overseas or mainland Chinese markets are also able to experience it, contributing to the preservation and dissemination of Hong Kong-style milk tea culture in a big way.”
After all, this ordinary brew is having its moment not only in Hong Kong, but around the world.
Bing sutt cafes, the humble venues that peddle cup after cup of milk tea to tired office workers and tourists alike, recently became the subject of a home-grown festival dedicated to exploring the past, present and future of Hong Kong food culture, which also featured programming in London.
“One of the objectives is really for us to get to know our own culture,” said festival organiser and Hongkonger Hogan Cheng Ho-hang.
With food as a conduit, a greater understanding of Chinese culture is being fostered beyond the walls of the bing sutt.
Most people know Cantonese food for dim sum or sweet and sour pork
Joyeta Ng
Of course, milk tea is not the only way this is happening. From Australia to Germany, diverse voices of Chinese gastronomy add verve to the overall narrative, constructing a more nuanced understanding outside Asia.
In Sydney, Lin Jie Kong and comedian Jennifer Wong are telling stories of small-town Chinese restaurants Down Under, spotlighting the journey of how cha chaan teng classics – prawn toast, salt and pepper squid – became national favourites in Australia following the country’s 19th-century gold rush and its subsequent flood of Cantonese immigrants.
In this part of the world, you’ll find Alex Zhao’s “paddock-to-plate” Chinese restaurant T’s in Tasmania, or Happy Garden in the Northern Territory, where the Lee family cook sticky tamarind chicken wings inspired by their journey as refugees in East Timor before arriving in Darwin by way of Portugal.
In London, chef Joyeta Ng – who grew up in Hong Kong and worked at the high-end Japanese restaurant Den in Tokyo – shared her version of ‘Asian mom cooking’ in a hip Shoreditch pop-up, serving a multi-course Cantonese tasting menu built around British ingredients.
“Most people know Cantonese food for dim sum or sweet and sour pork,” Ng conceded, but she is adamant about showcasing her home cuisine’s more subtle points.
With photography, food and culture as a common link, the founders of Berlin-based siu mei – Cantonese roast meats – restaurant Rice Service bonded over the desire to “look inward and ask [ourselves] who we are as people in the landscape of Europe”.


The result? An irreverent but considered tribute to the iconic siu mei restaurants of their parents’ generation, where dishes are rooted in tradition but open to interpretation.
For other chefs, like Guirong Wei of successful London restaurants Xi’an Impression, Master Wei and Dream Xi’an, the desire is to propel lesser-known Chinese cuisine into the mainstream.
“I want to make Xian noodles as popular as possible. I feel it’s my duty,” says Wei, a young Shaanxi native who moved to the British capital in 2008 with no English, friends or family. She is now one of four trailblazers featured in a new Netflix release, Chef’s Table: Noodles.
After dedicating seasons of sizzling, slow-mo tributes to the culinary world’s haute cuisine icons, food documentarian David Gelb sets his lens on the transformative power of a single dish.
Strand by strand, Wei’s episode explores how the growing British appetite for mainland Chinese cuisine dovetails with her own journey of self-discovery and new-found appreciation for the rich history, context and culture of Shaanxi cuisine.
Wei is just one example of a new generation of tough-it-out immigrants striving to interpret their own cuisine to a curious foreign audience, slowly but surely influencing and diversifying the culinary landscape of their adoptive homes.


The intersection of food, power and identity also plays out in shows like the recently concluded Korean Netflix series Culinary Class Wars – a high-octane reality cooking competition featuring 100 of South Korea’s best chefs.
Significant, however, has been the prominence of Chinese gastronomy threading its way through the dishes and feasts that have been showcased throughout the show’s 12-episode run.
Among the contestants, “Goddess of Chinese Cuisine” Park Eun-young and Jung Ji Sun of Seoul restaurants Tianmimi have shone the spotlight on contemporary Chinese cuisine in a Korean context.
The timing couldn’t be greater, as Taiwanese-Korean contestant Lu Ching Lai, one of Seoul’s leading veterans of Chinese cooking, recently lent his expertise to one of Hong Kong’s most exciting new restaurant openings.
Moo-Lah, by Seoul’s irreverent butcher and beef specialist Born & Bred, takes the concept of Hong Kong’s beloved beef brisket noodles and adds a Korean spin by way of incorporating premium hanwoo, or Korean beef.
“An ordinary noodle dish can be extraordinary,” says founder Jung Sang-won, whose next plan is to bring this quintessential Cantonese dish back to Seoul, to show his people how to enjoy hanwoo with Hong Kong characteristics.
When it comes to noodles and culture, there is a lot to unfurl – but how delicious is the process?
60-Second Catch-up
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Where to eat the best wonton noodles in Hong Kong, and how the dumplings reached the city.
Hong Kong beef satay noodles’ origins, and how to make them at home.
5 popular spices used in Chinese cooking and why people love them.
Video: Hong Kong’s next-generation dim sum.
No walnuts in Chinese walnut cookies? A Hong Kong baker explains.
Video: How Hong Kong’s most iconic buns and pastries were born.
How to make Hong Kong’s vanishing dragon’s beard candy and ding ding tong.
Video: Cantonese noodles 101: the most iconic noodle pairings in Hong Kong.
Deep Dives

What’s so special about Hong Kong-style milk tea? Where to begin?

Hong Kong-style milk tea has a rich history dating back to the British colonial era. We look at what makes it so special and a cultural icon

A cup of silky milk tea in the morning is enjoyed by many a person in Hong Kong, often alongside a hearty cafe breakfast. According to industry data, 2.5 million cups of Hong Kong-style milk tea are drunk every day in the city.
The roots of the comforting drink go back to the early part of the city’s British colonial era in the 19th century. Dr Siu Yan-ho, a lecturer in the department of Chinese language and literature at Hong Kong Baptist University, says it was invented after Hong Kong became a trading port.
Read more.

With tamales and dim sum, Asian-Latino families celebrate two cultures

Asian-Latino parents and their kids talk about mixing cultures, cuisines and festivals, the struggle to fit in, and how others perceive them

Traces of Mexican and Chinese cultures are evident in every corner of the Salinas family’s California home.
In the living room, Chinese history books, paintings and dolls share space with family photos and school diplomas. The family calls this area the “Chinese room”, says Jesse, a first-generation Mexican-American, and this is where his wife Lisa, a fifth-generation Chinese-American, entertains her youngest grandchild with toy dogs.
Read more.

‘Amazing’ breakfast dishes from hidden China given spotlight in cookbook

In Zao Fan: Breakfast of China, Michael Zee’s recipes take home chefs on a journey and put Chinese morning meals on the map

It was a moment of serendipity that allowed Michael Zee, the British-Chinese food writer behind the social media sensation SymmetryBreakfast, to find some of the most treasured recipes featured in his new cookbook, Zao Fan: Breakfast of China.
Towards the end of 2022, he had finished recording a recipe for baba – a puffy, delicately fried breakfast bread served daily as part of the staff meals at Miao Lu vineyard in China’s Yunnan province – and was on his way to Chongqing by train.
Read more.

Cookbook celebrates the Chinese restaurants Australia’s small towns rely on

From lemon chicken to sweet and sour barramundi, recipes in Chopsticks or Fork? tell stories of Chinese immigration in rural Australia

In 2017 Lin Jie Kong, at the tail end of a road trip, stopped for food in the tiny Australian town of Karuah, New South Wales.
She was expecting the usual pub fare – fish and chips or chicken Parmesan.
Read more.

With DIY Hong Kong milk tea kits, Canadian pair share their love of a cuppa

In Vancouver, Pep So and Stanley Tsui could not find good Hong Kong-style milk tea, so they devised a kit to make it at home. It’s taken off

Pep So Shun-wah is very particular about his Hong Kong-style milk tea. He even learned how to make the steaming hot drink of black tea, evaporated milk and sugar in a cha chaan teng – a traditional Hong Kong cafe.
The 38-year-old, who moved to Vancouver two years ago, had been told by his friends on a prior visit that the milk tea in the city was not very good. He was determined to do something about it.
Read more.

Hong Kong’s food culture celebrated in new festival all about cafes

Running until October 5, the festival involves four ‘bing sutt’ cafes in Hong Kong and London and aims to spread Hong Kong food culture

Many years ago, while he was studying in the English city of Nottingham, Hogan Cheng Ho-hang was stumped when a British friend asked him how he would describe the culture of his home city, Hong Kong.
“I couldn’t say anything. I said, ‘Well, we have some really famous milk tea,’” says the 28-year-old sheepishly.
Read more.

‘I want to open a restaurant so I can be your Asian mum’: meet Joyeta Ng

After working in Den, Kitchen Table, Noma and The Chairman, chef Joyeta Ng is set on transforming the perception of Cantonese food

Joyeta Ng, who grew up in Hong Kong, has always had a sixth sense for good food.
She shared a home in Pok Fu Lam, on Hong Kong Island, with her parents and she loved cooking with her mother. She also spent her summers in Japan with her half-Japanese grandmother and extended family.
Read more.

As Asians in Europe they grew up waiting tables. Now they own a restaurant

Co-founders of Berlin siu mei restaurant Rice Service talk about growing up in restaurants and their focus on traditional Chinese cooking

For fashion photographers turned restaurant owners Thu Thuy Pham and Kenneth Lam, both photography and food are about storytelling.
“[But] with food, you can do it in a more ‘innocent’ way and ask for a bit of acceptance,” says Pham, who co-founded Rice Service, a new Cantonese siu mei (roast meat) restaurant in Berlin, Germany, with Lam and Thao Westphal. “When you create something out of your own identity and community, you can tell different stories from your own perspective.”
Read more.
Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world.
Sign up now!


Momofuku’s David Chang takes detours on a culinary road trip across the US

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5 of the best things to do in Hong Kong this weekend, September 18-20

Food and Drinks

From milk tea to noodles, the history and influence of Chinese food culture

A girl poses with Milk Tea Flavours installation at HKIA Arts & Culture Festival in Hong Kong Airport. Photo: Edmond So

Hong Kong-style milk tea is served with popular Hong Kong fare at the HOKO Cafe, a pop-up cafe in the trendy London neighborhood of Shoreditch. Photo: AP

Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Photo: Hector Amezcua

Photo: Bloomsbury Publishing

Photo: Jennifer Wong

Photo: Kong Tea

Photo: Jonathan Wong

Photo: Alexander Brunacci

Photo: Rice Service

China, Philippines continue to clash in South China Sea, with new flashpoint emerging

A China Coast Guard ship is seen from the Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Cabra during a supply mission to Sabina Shoal in disputed waters of the South China Sea. Photo: TNS

Philippine Coast Guard personnel wave flags as the Vietnam Coast Guard CSB-8002 patrol ship makes a port call at the Port of Manila. Photo: EPA-EFE

Photo: AFP

Illustration: Victor Sanjinez Garcia

Photo: Handout

Photo: Australian Department of Defence/AFP

Illustration: Henry Wong

Photo: TNS

Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

Photo: Reuters

China remains a talking point as election day looms for Trump and Harris

Signs showing support for both Democratic presidential candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump sit along a rural highwar near Traverse City, Michigan. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

US Vice-President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Photo: TNS

illustration by Lau Ka-kuen

Photo: AP

Photo: Bloomberg

China’s ‘time running out’ to meet economic growth target as August figures falter

Employees producing basketballs at a factory in Sihong, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. Photo: AFP

Employees working on a jelly production line at a food factory in Suqian, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. Photo: AFP

China’s video game achievement may be anomaly for years to come despite Black Myth: Wukong

A woman holds up an umbrella as it rains near an advertisement promoting blockbuster Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong in Beijing. Photo: AP

A boy plays the video game Black Myth: Wukong in the Sony store in Shanghai. Photo: EPA-EFE

Illustration: Brian Wang

Photo: SCMP composite/Baidu/Weibo

Photo: Game Science

Japan faces uncertainties amid threats from China abroad and political and earthquake fears at home

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Photo: AP

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. Photo: Kyodo

Photo: Japan’s Ministry of Defence /AFP

Photo: X/JASDF

Photo: Kyodo

Economy

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

In this week’s issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we take a deep dive into Chinese food culture, its history and how it influences cuisines from around the region


In this week’s issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we take a deep dive into Chinese food culture, its history and how it influences cuisines from around the region.


Global Impact

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}In this week’s issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we take a deep dive into Chinese food culture, its history and how it influences cuisines from around the region

In this week’s issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we take a deep dive into Chinese food culture, its history and how it influences cuisines from around the region