Yum cha: The eighth wonder of the world

In China tea drinking has been considered an art form for centuries — the choice of water is paramount, the very act of pouring is a specialised skill and cha hua (tea talk) is a serious social activity.

This, of course, is no great revelation. Less well-known in the West, however, are the glorious edibles that grew out of this reverence for tea. Together they form yum cha, that meal of a myriad little steamed and fried dumplings and other sensuous titbits.

My first yum cha, many years ago, was an epiphany and the next few weeks saw me returning again and again, either with others I wished to infect, or alone to indulge on the sly.

My solo forays have been supremely gratifying, but yum cha is best experienced in a group. Much like the tea drinking that gave birth to it, it’s not simply about sustenance; rather, it’s a very social practice and one that has cult status among new devotees.

It’s like nothing else — the arrival of bite after bite on tiny plates or in bamboo steaming baskets at random intervals, the sharing of extraordinary tastes and textures, and the knowledge that most of these recipes are so old as to make cassoulet look like the faddiest fusion dish around. It’s sensual, addictive and hugely stylish (added to which it does wonders for a hangover).

Yum cha — literally “to take tea” —originated in 10th century Sung Dynasty in southern China, at a time when tea’s cult status increased in Canton.

Sustenance was needed to accompany the increasingly unhurried ritual, and these morsels became known as dim sum (dot hearts or as another translation poetically puts it, “point to your heart’s desire”).

Tea houses — initially often humble shanties and originally frequented only by males — grew more lavish and the once-modest dim sum selection expanded. Today a top tea house in Hong Kong might offer more than a hundred choices.

While dim-summing is usually a breakfast/brunch affair, it may also serve as afternoon tea and in some top venues the ceremony can carry on well into the evening.

Happily for humanity Chinese emmigrants have taken yum cha on a world tour. However, it has only caught on big time in the most cosmopolitan food capitals, such as New York and Sydney.

In South Africa it has a much shorter history than has local Chinese cuisine in general. One place that popularised dim sum was the now-extinct Gold Reef City restaurant in Jo’burg’s old Chinatown on Commissioner Street, about 10 years ago. Increased Chinese immigration brought both the clientele and the chefs with the know-how (much like sushi making, it’s considered a specialised art).

Locally, the selection is a tad more modest and is served in restaurants rather than specialist tea houses, but it’s still an outing of note. If you haven’t encountered it yet, it’s probably because relatively few local places offer it and because it appears as a separate menu — a skinny carbon backed “questionnaire”, where you mark off the desired items.

Names and spellings can differ wildly from menu to menu, what with phonetic translations and dialects in the mix, so if in grave doubt, tick every third option and hope for the best. And by the way, you won’t be given the menu automatically unless you’re Chinese, or at least Asian, as Chinese restaurateurs are always (understandably) pretty amazed when Occidental diners don’t head straight for the sweet-and-sour chicken.

For the uninitiated, here’s a guide to the best and/or most curious on offer:

Prawn har gau: Generally recognised as the ultimate test of any restaurant’s dim sum prowess. Freshest prawns wrapped in a gossamer thin shell of snow-white wheat starch pastry (wheat flour sans gluten) and steamed. A friend and fellow addict once confided his contention that the prawn har gau represented the high point of human civilisation. Once you’ve experienced them, you’ll see that this was no facetious remark.

Ham sui gok: Wheat starch and glutinous rice flour form deep-fried golden-brown nuggets, enclosing an ever-changing variety of braised meat and veg combos. Fragrant with five-spice mix, and gorgeously unnerving in their sticky yet crackle-crisp texture.

Cheong fun (or steamed roll): Wheat starch pastry rolled in floppy blanket fashion around a variety of fillings — beef, prawn, shrimp or vegetables. The texture is ridiculously slippery-silky. Worth ordering just to watch everyone trying to manouevre them from bowl to mouth.

Chicken feet: Yes, of course it’s natural to be a tad worried the first time you put a foot in your mouth, but in truth, these snacks have converted many a squeamish diner. Much like snails, its all in the sauce, which in this case is a darn sight more interesting than garlic butter, and will smother most qualms.

Tzong (also chung or zong zi or glutinous rice): Seasoned sticky rice punctuated with all manner of goods, including Chinese mushroom, peanuts and mung beans. Wrapped in bamboo, lotus or other leaves and steamed.

Stuffed sesame balls: Balls of sesame-coated glutinous rice pastry, with stuffings ranging from red-bean paste to custard. Along with mai tai kao — transparent, sticky, fried water-chestnut cakes — they’re the best of the sweet offerings.

Most savoury items get a quick dip into soy, and/or chilli.

Though yum cha is available countrywide (if sparsely) Jo’burg is the undisputed dim sum capital of South Africa. Most places serve it between 11am and 3pm, with Sunday the most traditional yum cha day: