Aphyaw Hsayar: Myanmar’s Mix Masters

(Photo courtesy of Rangoon Tea House via Tea Circle)

The following is a snapshot from the field observations of Mike Dunford and Dinith Adikari, both PhD students in Anthropology at the Australian National University. Dinith’s primary focus is the changing social functions of tea shops, and Mike’s research focus is on the tea industry’s ethno-political and ecological entanglements. The observations that form this post were made between January 2018 and March 2020, primarily in Yangon and Mandalay.

This piece is a brief meditation on the role of the aphyaw hsayar (အဖျော်ဆရာ), a term we are choosing to translate as “mix master.” Most Tea Circle readers will be familiar with laphet yay (လက်ဖက်ရည်), the milky tea served at tea shops throughout Myanmar: the aphyaw hsayar is the person—usually a man—in charge of blending laphet yay to customers’ tastes. Aphyaw hsayar are everyday experts on the level of baristas or skilled bartenders, marshalling a variety of ingredients to produce cups of tea that match the vast range of possible tea orders available in a Burmese tea shop. A talented aphyaw hsayar can cultivate a following and make a tea shop; by the same turn, losing a talented aphyaw hsayar can be ruinous. As Myanmar’s tea culture changes, especially in Yangon where dedicated aphyaw hsayar seem to be in decline, there is some evidence that tea-mixing may be a dying art. We would like to explore the role of the aphyaw hsayar further and ask what it means to mix tea in today’s teashops.

Click here to keep reading. Mike Dunford and Dinith Adikari write for Tea Circle.