Singapore Part 2 - A Tour of Chinatown

One of the perks of a week long conference at a travel destination is that often they sponsor tours as part of the package. On that first trip to Singapore I opted to take a tour of Chinatown. And as it turned out only one other person, someone I now work with on occasion, was interested in that tour so two American girls got a very nice private tour for the day. The first stop we made was Thian Hock Keng, the oldest Chinese temple in Singapore built in 1821. This site was built by seaman from China grateful for their safe passage to the island. It is wooden and built without the use of nails. They are constantly painting and doing repair to preserve the buildings because the tropical climate is very harsh on it.

Thian Hock Keng

The next stop was Eu Yan Sang Birds Nest Gallery. It is the largest traditional Chinese Medicine establishment in Chinatown and there we learned about the Chinese secrets to keeping healthy, mainly the use of bird’s nest as a delicacy and health supplement. They believe that the spit from three certain species of swiftlets (that’s a bird that builds special nests) has medicinal powers. The harvesting process is amazing as the birds build nests way up in the crevices of caves and the harvesting is accomplished by workers climbing up, using candles to light the way, and then collecting the nests with long bamboo poles. The bamboo poles have a claw type basket on the end so they do not drop the bird nest. Once the swiftlet babies hatch the birds never use the same nest again but if they harvest the nest too soon the babies don’t survive so there are strict rules about when harvesting can occur (the nests come from Indonesia, Taiwan, and other places but not Singapore). Then there is a long process of soaking the birds nest and picking out the feathers and dirt by hand, reshaping it and drying it. It is very expensive if you get very pure bird’s nest because it is so labor intensive. Downstairs from the museum was the Chinese equivalent of a GNC store with tons of herbs and powders with descriptions like “dries out cough”, “removes fevers” and “good for circulation”. The whole place smelt rather pungent, not bad but not exactly pleasant either. My tour buddy and I were too timid to buy anything. I guess I have seen too many reports/shows where that strange disease turns out to be from some herb they bought overseas. 

Finally we went to a specially arranged session at the Tea Art Centre where we had a lecture about tea. This was wonderful as the speaker spoke well and was very informative. Did you know that drinking a lot of strong tea on an empty stomach can make you high? He told us this and then I certainly had a buzz after my light lunch and drinking hot tea one little cup after another in a short time.  All tea types come from one plant (in other words there aren’t a bunch of different varieties of plants) and tea drinking is a tradition that is over 4000 years old.  Black tea uses all the leaves, is machine harvested and they char the leaves. All other tea types are hand harvested. Green tea takes the top three leaves and is dried by hand in low temperature woks. White tea is very rare and is only the single very top leaf of the plant which has a sliver look to it (hence the name white tea) and it is not heated at all. Oolong is sort of between green tea and black tea as it is partially smoked. For those wanting the healthy benefits of tea, white tea has the most anti-oxidants followed by green then oolong and then black tea has virtually none. It is the same principle as cooking vegetables; the more it is cooked during processing the less good stuff in it. Most black teas have oil added to it for fragrance (for example earl grey has bergamot oil). Jasmine tea is a blend of jasmine blossoms with green or black tea. Unless it says green tea somewhere on the package then the jasmine tea is black tea. All teas fall into one of the four main categories and you can tell what it is by the color and shape of the leaves. We are of course talking about the good teas where you have leaves to look at not the ground up leaves and stems we are used to in our Lipton ice tea bags. If you buy green tea and it isn’t a green color then it is old as it turns blackish over time and has lost the best flavors. 

Lessons in Tea at Tea Art Centre

And for those wondering, the Chinese do not do a ceremony like the Japanese. The Chinese “ceremony” if you will, is the process of bringing out the best flavors of a tea. It is very similar to a wine tasting as you should show the leaves to your guest and you pour the tea into a sniff cup first and then transfer it to the drink cup and then sniff the residue in the sniff cup where you can smell the aroma much better than just trying to sniff a cup of tea. You take three quick sips and then drink it down. The cups are slightly smaller than a shot glass. Also note that since good tea are hand processed that you should pour your hot water over the leaves (fill the pot or cup) and immediately dump it out. This is a cleansing process and also causes the tea leaves to unfurl to get the best flavor. If you have ever reused tea leaves or a tea bag this is why the second cup tastes better. This was absolutely one of my favorite parts of this whole trip. I treated myself to some really good tea and now every time I am in Asia I try to find good Chinese teas to bring home.