Myanmar, the home of laphet, meets Europe, in a pasta dish, Laphet Pasta! This is a collaboration between the Maw Shan tea company and Do Do’s Kitchen.
When two cultural culinary icons met — Myanmar’s pickled tea leaves (or laphet), on the one hand, and the diet staple of the Italians, pasta, on the other — it was a no-brainer for our chef to put them together into a single dish! This fusion recipe brings the unique taste of laphet, together with Myanmar spices, to the texture and presentation of pasta.
The chef recommends serving the dish with her Vegan Konjac Sausages.
The chef recommends serving the dish with her Vegan Konjac Sausages.
Probably the most well-known Myanmar delicacies, laphet is eaten widely and frequently — on special ceremonial occasions (served in the style of the image pictured here); in salad form as laphet thoke, accompanying a meal; as a welcoming snack for guests at home; or as a pick-me-up for students staying up late to catch up on their work. The tea plant is native to the country, and some postulate the Myanmar term laphet (tea) is special, in that most other languages and cultures in the world trace their word for “tea” to its Chinese roots (te’ or cha’).
Do Do kitchen’s owner and head chef started her restaurant out of her home kitchen during COVID, when she wanted to provide hearty, healthy, homemade meals for people who needed the energy fighting the virus. She opened up a physical restaurant right before the coup, and remains committed to providing the best meals possible, with recipes she is constantly tweaking and improving.
Linn Pyae Htun is the director of Power Maw Shan tea company, a business founded by his great grandfather in the 1960s, in Pindaya, Shan state. While it is a family dynasty, Myanmar tea culture, and laphet, is his passion. The rest of the world may hold that “Tea is only for drinking” but for Linn Pyae, Myanmar stands apart as the only country that eats it as well.
