Maria Tan
Hear me out: we have become far too comfortable with the phrase “caffeine-free tea.” It appears on beautiful packaging, wellness websites, and café menus with the confidence of a health guarantee. The words suggest calm evenings, better sleep, and a gentler relationship with what we drink. But there is a problem. The phrase sounds clearer…
I have a small habit that I never really noticed until recently. The weather changes, and somehow, so does the tea I want. On a hot afternoon, I find myself reaching for something light and floral. When rain settles over the windows, I want something darker, warmer, perhaps a little more comforting. On those rare…
I noticed the ginger lily flowers before I noticed anything else. Not real ones, exactly. A wall of them, suspended in resin, catching the light as I stepped off the lift on Level 5 at Hilton Singapore Orchard, home to Ginger Lily, a floral-themed afternoon tea lounge on Orchard Road. I stood there a second…
I have a confession. I am slightly tired of seeing matcha everywhere. Not because I dislike matcha. In fact, I drink it quite often. But there is something amusing about watching a humble tea become the centre of every café menu, wellness conversation, and social media trend. Matcha has gone from a traditional Japanese tea…
I forgot, for a moment, that I was indoors at Hortus, the Mediterranean restaurant nestled within the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay. There were trees above me, real ones, and the air held that cool, green stillness you usually find early in the morning somewhere far from the city. A leaf drifted down…
The first sip was bitter. I was maybe seven, and my grandmother had pressed a small ceramic cup into my hands, dark liquid inside, steam curling up between us. She didn’t explain. She just said, “Drink. You’ve been too heaty.“ I made a face. She didn’t smile. She just waited until I finished. Years later,…
I have a tea sitting in my cupboard that I would never call my “best” tea. It is not the rarest. It is not the most expensive. It does not come with an impressive story about ancient tea trees, remote mountains, or a limited harvest. And yet, I drink it more often than almost anything…
There is a red pot in my mother’s kitchen that only comes out in the evening. By then the coffee has done its work and gone quiet. The day has loosened. She fills the kettle, drops in a spoonful of something the colour of dried autumn, and lets it sit while she tidies the last…
Hear me out: high tea is one of the most convincing ways we have found to make snacking feel important. I understand the appeal. The room is polished, the cups are delicate, and everything arrives in miniature. There is something satisfying about sitting down in the middle of the afternoon and behaving as though time…
I almost walked past it. Owen Road Singapore doesn’t announce much. A quiet stretch, low buildings, the kind of road you pass through on the way to somewhere louder. Then there it was, unassuming, just numbers on a wall: 117. Anteasocial is a contemporary Oriental specialty teahouse in Singapore, and if you’re looking for a…