From a young age, I drank and loved tea. More specifically pu-erh tea, a fermented black tea from Yunnan. Every morning, at dawn, my father took me to the “tea room”, a popular restaurant where workers met around 6 am for breakfast and to eat dim sum (steamed bites) before going to the restaurant. job.
We lived in a shack in a slum, in Wan Chai, on Hong Kong Island. In summer, under the tin roof, it was terribly hot, and in winter, it was terribly cold. Those early mornings in the midst of workers and elders, many of whom hung their birdcages above tables, were moments that I cherished.
They say it “blooms”
My father and I always took a char siu bao, a steamed brioche filled with lacquered pork, which opens slightly when cooked. It is said to “bloom”. In the tea room, this bao is the food of the poor, a simple and invigorating dish that made me happy, perfect with a pu-erh tea, which degreases the palate, nicknamed “rainy tea” because it is never bitter.
My parents worked in a Cantonese street operetta, where they took care of the actors, made them up and dressed them.
When I was 10 years old, we moved to an HLM in Tsz Wan Shan, in the heights of Kowloon. It was a tiny apartment where ten of us lived – my six siblings, our parents, our grandmother and I – but where we were luckier than others because we had our own bathroom and kitchen. . My grandmother made us food, simple dishes, rice, sautéed vegetables, soup, marinated steamed meat.
My parents worked in a Cantonese street operetta, where they took care of the actors, made them up and dressed them. They were rarely at home. When my grandmother died, around my 12th birthday, it was we, the children, who took over the household chores, especially the cooking.
At 22, after training as a graphic designer, I decided to go to France for a few months, to learn the language and see the country. I stayed. I studied Fine Arts in Bordeaux, then I found work in Paris, as a graphic designer in the press.
Hiding her belly
I met Adeline in the early 2000s. She was still a student at the Ferrandi hotel school, then she worked for three years with Pascal Barbot, at Astrance, and wanted to go to China. She left for Hong Kong without me, found work, and I joined her six months later.
Pregnant, Adeline had made up her mind to learn how to make dim sum, and she took an internship in a restaurant while hiding her stomach. After the birth of our daughter Nina, we returned to Paris to set up Yam’Tcha. I was fed up with graphics, and I embarked on the adventure of this gourmet restaurant with Adeline. Little by little, tea took its place in our kitchen, until we came up with tea pairings.
Since then, we have moved the Yam’Tcha, and, at its old address, have installed a creative baos counter. Finally, we opened Lai’Tcha, a tea room where we offer, among other things, the traditional char siu bao – the taste of my childhood, calmed by a good pu-erh tea.