If tea is your bag...

Yes ladies and gentlemen. Thailand is quite the place for when tea is your bag. Not only do they have many exquisite kinds of tea (from the Imperial Chinese white tea to all kinds of soothing Japanese green teas), sometimes you actually get your tea served in a plastic bag. The same goes for any kind of non-alcoholic beverage you can buy at roadside stalls, but especially for a refreshing drink know in Thailand as 'cha yen' (tea cold) or 'cha nom yen' (tea milk cold).

Now don't adjust your monitor. There's nothing wrong with it. This muddy bright orange color is what the tea is supposed to look like. The color comes from a low quality variety of red tea grown in the north of Thailand or (more often) food coloring. In taste cha nom yen is a relative of it's piping hot Indian cousin 'chai masala'. But there's no cardamom or ginger or pepper in cha yen. They left in the star anise and some other herbs, added ice cubes and sometimes if you are lucky a bit of licorice flavor (which is weird because there isn't anything like licorice available anywhere in Thailand. And what do you know: I am lucky. We have the perfect cha nom yen stall right in our Soi. With licorice and everything. Cheers!