Tea Houses in Myanmar are a real institution.
You can find them both in large cities and in small dusty villages.
Much more than just bars, you can’t define restaurants even if they serve good food at really low prices.
Tea Houses in Myanmar: how to recognize them
You can easily recognize tea rooms from outside.
They are completely open to the street and customers sit on small tables and stools.
Very often there’s a fire outside, with a big frying pot on it.
Tea Houses in Myanmar: what to eat
Tea rooms are the place to stop for a fast and cheap meal.
They open in the early morning (some stay open 24 hours) and serve both cakes, noodles and salads (what do you eat in Myanmar?).
The food is accompanied by coffee mix, tea prepared with condensed milk or can drinks.
On each table, however, you can get free Chinese tea.
Tea Houses in Myanmar: who attends
Tea rooms are mostly frequented by men who spend hours chatting and smoking cigarettes in front of a cup of tea or a salad.
The time of major attendance is, however, in the evening, when football matches (mainly of the English Premier League) or boxing matches are broadcast on TV.
Tea Houses in Myanmar: their function
The Tea Rooms, especially in the past, were the place where we met and updated on the news or discussed the events in the city. Kind of like country bars in Italy.
Today, with the internet, this function has definitely come less and young people seem not to attend tea halls with assiduously.
Tea Houses in Myanmar: Negative aspects
Very often in small country, you can see children work in these Tea Houses. Sent by the poorest families who can’t keep them and they start working whaen they are too young.
It is something that honestly has really saddened us and, fortunately, many associations are already taking action. Let us hope that the problem of child labour is gonna be solved quickly.