Prosperity Brew

My friend Chuan taught me a few things about the art of brewing tea. You don't want to leave the tea bag(s) soaked in the jug too long, otherwise some intricate chemical reactions would take place in there, making the brew lose its zing, that it will taste soury. 'After a few minutes, take them out. Use it again for brewing next batches,' he said one evening after evaluating and criticizing the dull-tasted tea we had together at a cafe in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.

Boastfully he claimed himself a tea expert and I couldn't say more because he's Chinese. No way you could be better than a Chinese in tea science. I personally like mine black and bitter with modest sweetness, not manih letteng that best describes the overwhelming sweetness of all kuihs and ladies in Kelantan. So far, in my experience befriending Chuan, whose name means "boat", I could see he has steered his barge full of tea knowledge very well. Surprised to know that I carry Chinese gene of my paternal ancestors within me, he introduced me to the celestial aroma of jasmine tea when he was being my guest during his visit to Kampung Cina Kuala Terengganu a year ago.

Chinese people seldom add sugar into their cuppa, he informed me, and after hearing this I had to accustom my British tongue to a new taste of tea: unsweetened. That was hard because I have been sipping sweetened Liptons and Bohs all my life. The idea of not adding sugar into my jasmine tea has caused my taste buds act a bit awkward. So when Chuan has gone back to his hometown, I silently add sugar into it while pondering what "jasmine" really means in Malay. It was "melur", a kind of flower that smells good and when naming a Malay girl "Melur", she must be very pretty.

On the same warm day of our journey at Kampung Cina, he made me taste a kind of cold sweet tea, whose name was hard to pronounce correctly without Chuan's assistance. It was called "luo han guo" tea, made from a kind of exotic fruit harvested from "luo han guo" trees by people of China, probably at their backyard by the bank of air chor (water puddle). It tasted like longan juice sold at many hawker stalls at Sarawak, and also borrowed the colour of it, but with a tinge of quaint taste and aroma that my narrative capability could not describe nor relate to similar things on earth. Chuan said, luo han guo tea carries cooling properties. I reckon this tea is good for short tempered people like me.

Lately I began to like drinking unsweetened Chinese tea. Probably it was luo han guo tea that cooled down my ego. I discovered calmness and tranquility - a celestial aftermath of sipping unsweetened "oolong" tea, a type of half-fermented tea from mainland China. The unfermented version of it is "green tea", tasted good too. The commercial black teas available in the market are fully fermented ones, and used by mamaks nationwide to make the life-threatening teh tarik.

With tea, you make good friends.

I would like to wish all my Chinese friends, Selamat Hari Raya Cina. This is less pretentious than saying English sounding phrases like 'Happy Chinese New Year'. And for your information, we say 'Hari Raya Cina' over here in Terengganu.

Getting Into The Sea

Three main varieties of ikang aye live in Dungun's sea; the aye selasih, aye itang, and aye kughik. A part of tuna race, aye selasih is easily identifiable for its garish shade against the second variety, like a Chinese to a Botswanan lad. Among these two, aye selasih is preferred by the locals. Aye itang's meat has chocolate bars which is not friendly to their taste buds. Its detractors say, the blood-rich parts taste so 'hanyir', which is the taste of fish.

These two varieties however share a common soft and delicate meat, and so, they are the popular choices among ikang aye's enthusiasts to be cooked as rice side-dish; fried and later dipped into a dollop of spicy sambal belacan, eaten together with cashew shoots in the windy afternoon of Kampung Sura Tengah while gossiping about other people's domestic problem.

The third variety, a mysterious aye kughik, is always ignored. Aye kughik, being accused of having hard meat, which is true, is actually a good choice for nasi dagang's chefs of some respectable restaurants in Terengganu. They are less expensive compared to the first two varieties. The real experts of nasi dagang know how to soften the aye kughik's meat while making the meat tastes as delicious as the first two superior varieties mentioned above.

But how are we going to identity aye kughik?

"Ask the fishmongers," Mother said. "If your Father still around, he knows every single ikang at this pasor (wet market)."

"Hurm, okay," I said. "So what's the difference between ikang kembong and ikang selor? I see no difference."

"Ikang kembong looks like this," Mother fished the tail of ikang kembong out of the heap of its dead friends and flipped it to see the other side of it, which looked no different than its other side I saw just now. She then pressed the fish's body, and flipped the gills open.

"Look here, Along." Mother said. "Still red. That means it's still fresh. If it's dark, that means not fresh. Then look at the eyes, if the eyes are red, don't buy it. It's ikang air batu." Fish frozen in ice for a quite some time, she meant.

"How much for this kembong?" Mother later asked the fishmonger.

"Hurm, okay," said I, bewildered. "So what's the difference between ikang kembong and ikang selor, anyway? How about selayang?"