One of my new favorite restaurants is Chin Brothers in Indianapolis, Indiana. If you like Thai food, you will probably really also enjoy the flavorful cuisine of Burmese food. I am not an expert at the Chin language nor do I remember the name of the salad, but I think that I have found the ingredients for one of my favorite salads at a local Burmese grocery store. The name of the salad might be laphet thoke, a type of fermented tea leaf salad.

I remember that fermented tea leaves are part of the ingredients as well as a variety of what seem like toasted, crunchy beans. While I was picking up my dry cleaning, I decided to visit Khambawi Restaurant and Grocery, next door to the dry cleaners. I found both prepackaged beans that were vacuum sealed and some beans that were put into a lidded plastic container along with some dried tea leaves.

I brought the beans and packaged leaves to the front counter. I tried to explain that I wanted to make a salad. The cashier walked to a refrigerator in the back of the grocery and brought me some refrigerated, fermented tea leaves and asked someone else in the store to help communicate with me. I asked if the beans were the same, but the man indicated that the ones in the lidded container were more delicious, so I bought those.

Beans from Khambawi Restaurant and Grocery in Indianapolis, Indiana

Fermented tea leaves with peppers and spices

There was some garlic on the counter near the cash register. The woman gestured that I should add some sliced or minced garlic to the mix as well. Although I didn’t add any garlic, I went home and happily experimented with proportions and have eaten almost all of the beans and only about one-fourth of the fermented tea leaves in less than 24 hours. I would really like to learn how to prepare some beans to make mine as crunchy as theirs.

If you are trying to reduce your salt intake or don’t like spicy food, you should avoid eating this; however, I think it would be worth trying once and not eating salty foods for at least a week.