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First Time China · Food
How China eats, region by region and meal by meal: the cuisines, the noodles, the tea and the breakfast table, in guides written for a first visit.
9 guides

Why the vegetables on a Chinese table are fresh and cheap: not a good cold chain, but vegetables that do not have time to grow old.
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Chinese eating changes shape with headcount more than with region. Breakfast with a closing time, a bowl that is one person's whole meal.
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Chinese cuisine beyond the takeaway menu: the eight schools, why the regions differ, the cooking verbs English has no words for, how to order.
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Chinese noodles sorted by the verb: pulled, shaved, flicked, pressed, scissored, rubbed, ladled.
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How Chinese tea actually works: the six categories defined by when the maker stops the leaf's enzymes, the twenty provinces that grow them.
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How Chinese baijiu actually works: twelve aroma types defined by the vessel the grain ferments in, the living pit mud that makes the flavour.
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China grows coffee, almost all of it in Yunnan, from trees a French missionary planted in the 1890s.
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Chinese breakfast is a separate cuisine with its own dishes, shops and hours.
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Twelve lists built on structural findings rather than rankings: where wheat stops and rice begins, twelve ways to shape a noodle.
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