Maria Tan
I have a feeling green tea has become the tea we’re all supposed to love. It’s everywhere. Wellness conversations, morning routines, skincare trends, and those beautiful matcha drinks that somehow make an ordinary afternoon look more interesting. And honestly, I get it. Green tea can be wonderful. Fresh, grassy, sometimes sweet. But I’ve started wondering…
Some drinks reach you before the cup does. At a drinks stall or coffee shops across Southeast Asia, the scent of brewed loose leaf tea or tea bags and sweetened condensed milk is usually in the air. But every so often, something sharper cuts through it, warm and a little peppery, freshly grated young fresh…
Tea as Hospitality: The Small Gestures That Make a Home I think we sometimes make hospitality sound more complicated than it needs to be. A beautifully arranged dining table. Matching plates. Fresh flowers. Something impressive coming out of the oven just as everyone arrives. All lovely things, of course. But when I think about the…
Anyone who has waited at a bus stop at midday in Singapore knows how much shade matters. You step under the roof, the glare softens, and everything slows down a little. Tea plants respond to shade too, though in their own way. In parts of Japan, farmers deliberately cover their tea bushes in the weeks…
I used to think choosing good tea meant knowing what to look for. The right origin. A respected producer. Beautiful leaves. A good harvest. Maybe even a price tag that made me think, “This must be worth it.” Over time, I realised I was making tea shopping much harder than it needed to be. Because…
Tea usually arrives quietly. Steam rising from a pot, a cup set down on a saucer, the scent of roasted tea leaves or jasmine drifting across a kitchen table. A cocktail bar keeps a different rhythm. The light is low, the glassware is chilled cocktail glass, and ice rattles sharply in a cocktail shaker. Yet…
Picture a sticky afternoon in Singapore. The kind where the air sits heavy on your shoulders and the walk from the MRT feels longer than it should. You reach for something cold. Maybe a teh peng from the drinks stall, ice clinking in a plastic cup. Maybe a bottle of green tea from the convenience…
I used to think cold brew tea was cheating. Not seriously, of course. But there was something about it that felt almost too easy. No kettle. No worrying about water temperature. No watching the clock while the leaves steep. Just tea, cold water, and a little patience. It seemed suspiciously effortless. Then I actually started…
There’s a specific kind of Singapore afternoon. The air feels thick, your shirt clings a little, and every mall entrance feels like a reward. On days like that, I don’t want anything heavy. I want something cold, bright, and full of fruit, but still recognizably tea. That’s where fruit teas come in. In Singapore, they’ve…
I used to think making tea required a thermometer. Not literally, perhaps, but almost. Every tea seemed to have a number attached to it. Green tea at this temperature. Oolong at another. Black tea a little hotter. Too hot and you had apparently ruined everything. For a while, I took these rules quite seriously. Then…