Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Drinking & Nightlife
Bubble tea, iced kopi-o, a frosty beer, or a flaming Lamborghini -
KL's cafes, teahouses and bars offer a multitude of ways to whet your whistle.
Muslim mores push coffee and tea culture to the fore, but there's no shortage of
alcohol-fuelled venues where you can party the night away with abandon.
Time for Tea
British colonial rule left Malaysians with a taste for tea. The leaf is grown on the peninsula
in the Cameron Highlands, with BOH the largest producer of black tea; there's also plenty
of tea imported from China, India and Sri Lanka.
One of the best shows at hawker stalls and
kopitiam
is watching the tea wallah toss-pour
an order of
teh tarik
(literally 'pulled' tea) from one pitcher to another. The result is one
very frothy cuppa. A true
teh tarik
is made using condensed milk, but this ingredient has
largely been replaced by condensed creamer made from palm oil.
Other tea drinks of note are
teh halia
(tea flavoured with ginger),
teh ais
(milky iced tea),
teh-o-ais
(iced tea without milk) and
teh limau
(tea with lime juice). For an especially rich
cuppa, ask for
teh susu kerabau
(hot tea with boiled fresh milk).
Chinese restaurants and cafes invariably serve green tea or pale-yellow chrysanthemum
tea, often sweetened with sugar.
Coffee Culture
Traditional Malaysian
kopi
(coffee) is also popular. This dark, bitter brew is served in
Chinese coffee shops and is an excellent antidote to a case of jetlag. Another unique-to-
Malaysia caffeinated drink is
cham
- a blend of milky coffee and tea.
There's no need to go without your daily dose of latte or espresso, though. Recently the
kopitiam
and their contemporary counterparts - chains such as Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
(
www.coffeebean.com
), PappaRich (
www.papparich.com.my
)
and Old Town White Coffee
(
www.oldtown.com.my
)
- are being challenged by independent cafes that deal in single
origin beans and employ baristas trained to use classic coffee-making machines.
Juices & Other Nonalcoholic Drinks
Caffeine-free alternatives include freshly blended fruit and vegetable juices; sticky-sweet,
green, sugar-cane juice; and coconut water, drunk straight from the fruit with a straw. More
