One pot of tea and two dim sum dishes — a Cantonese day begins at the teahouse.
Cantonese mornings are woken by har gow and chicken feet.
Guangzhou teahouses fill up by seven in the morning. Ladies push trolleys down the aisles calling out shrimp dumplings, chicken feet, spare ribs — the cries drawn out long. Old regulars order a pot of pu-erh and two dishes, open the newspaper, and a whole morning slips by.
The dim sum is craft. Har gow wrappers must be paper-thin with a whole shrimp inside; siu mai tops carry tobiko; cheung fun must be silky. Master chefs start at three in the morning so the first basket of the day is perfect.
Cantonese people call morning tea yum cha — the word yum holds both enjoyment and reflection. Weekend teahouses are liveliest, whole families seated together, chatting, doing business, telling stories. In a fast city, the teahouse is the slow time Cantonese people keep for themselves.
