This week in PostMag: from Hong Kong tea to Peruvian spuds, a global food adventure awaits!
Discover Hong Kong’s hillside tea revival, Peru’s 4,000 potato varieties, Stephen Yan’s wok legacy, artisan cleavers and Shaoxing wine’s gourmet renaissance – a feast for food lovers
No matter where or how far we go, there are certain constants that are our lifelong companions – the refrain of a rumbling stomach, for one, telling us, almost like clockwork, when it’s time to eat. A love of food and drink, or even just sating hunger, drives more of our decision-making than we give it credit for. Consider the schedules that are structured around meals, the trips that are planned to gastronomy-rich destinations, the reservations booked months in advance for an acclaimed restaurant, its location a secondary concern.
Pour yourself a cuppa and sink your teeth into our (predominantly) dining-themed issue. We’ve curated an eclectic menu of delicious tales, from starters to mains to dessert, to feed your appetite for storytelling. Warning: some of these reads might induce cravings.
It would seem Hong Kong’s hills are alive – with the rustling of tea bushes, cultivated against all odds. On her quest for the next bite – or sip, as it were – Hei Kiu Au arrives at Tai Mo Shan, the starting point of a captivating report on the past, present and future of Hong Kong tea culture, the ageing Hakka villagers who have preserved their traditions for centuries and a new generation’s ambition to take local tea-making to new heights.
About 19,000km away, at a different elevation, Kissa Castañeda eats her way around Peru’s Sacred Valley, one tuber at a time, and returns with a new-found appreciation for Andean cuisine and the humble spud. With more than 4,000 native potato species – yes, thousands, that’s not a typo – an attempt to try them all will probably take more than 180 days. I imagine it almost like Pac-Man, except with taters, not dots.