YAM CHA

In Southern China, Dim Sum is eaten from early in the morning till late at night. Restaurants begin serving Dim Sum as early as 6:30 in the morning and continue through mid-afternoon. Large round tables which seat up to 12 people are filled with varieties of Dim Sum. When you are first seated the waitress will hand you a menu and you use a pencil to mark off which items you want and the number of orders.

Drinking tea with Dim Sum goes without saying - once you manage to find a seat in a busy Dim Sum restaurant, rather than asking you what you would like to drink the waitress will ask you what type of tea you would like. The Chinese drink tea all day and it is widely believed that there are as many varieties of Chinese tea as there are French wines.