Tea shop
❃ Tea shop
-
လက်ဖက်ရည်ဆိုင်သွားရအောင်
[ La phet ye saing thwa ya aung ] -
Let's go to a tea house.
-
ညီလေး
[ Nyi lay ] -
Little brother! (To call a young waiter).
-
လက်ဖက်ရည်တစ်ခွက်ပေးပါ
[ La phet ye ta khwet pay ba ] -
One cup of sweet tea, please.
-
ချိုဆိမ့်
[ Cho seint ] -
Sweet and creamy tea.
-
ပုံမှန်
[ Pone hman ] -
Regular tea.
-
ကျဆိမ့်
[ Kya seint ] -
Strong and creamy tea.
-
ကော်ဖီမည်း
[ Coffee me ] -
Black coffee.
-
ရေနွေးကြမ်း
[ Yay nway gyan ] -
Plain green tea (usually free).
-
ပန်းကန်လုံးလေးပေးပါ
[ Pan gan lone lay pay ba ] -
Please give me small cups (for green tea).
-
အီကြာကွေးရှိလား
[ E kya kway shi la? ] -
Do you have fried dough sticks?
-
စမူဆာတစ်ပွဲပေးပါ
[ Sa mu sa ta pwe pay ba ] -
One plate of samosas, please.
-
ပေါက်စီ
[ Pauk si ] -
Steamed bun (Baozi).
-
မုန့်ဘာရှိလဲ
[ Mon ba shi le? ] -
What snacks do you have?
-
ဒါလတ်ဆတ်လား
[ Da lat sat la? ] -
Is this fresh?
-
ရေနွေးထပ်ဖြည့်ပေးပါ
[ Yay nway htat phye pay ba ] -
Please refill the hot water.
-
အချိုလျှော့ပေးပါ
[ A cho shaw pay ba ] -
Less sweet, please.
-
သကြားမထည့်နဲ့
[ Tha gya ma hte ne ] -
No sugar, please.
-
တစ်ရှူးပေးပါ
[ Tissue pay ba ] -
Give me a tissue.
-
စားပွဲသုတ်ပေးပါ
[ Sa bwe thoke pay ba ] -
Please wipe the table.
-
ပိုက်ဆံရှင်းမယ်
[ Paik san shin me ] -
Bill, please.
If you truly want to understand the heartbeat of Myanmar, you must pull up a tiny plastic chair at a local လက်ဖက်ရည်ဆိုင် (la phet ye saing) [lə pʰɛʔ jè zaɪɴ], the ubiquitous Burmese teahouse. Much more than just a place to eat and drink, the teahouse is the central pillar of Burmese social life, functioning as a neighborhood meeting point, a political debate arena, and a bustling morning dining room all rolled into one. Walking into a teahouse is a sensory explosion: the clinking of spoons against porcelain cups, the sizzling of fried snacks, and the energetic shouts of waiters navigating the crowded tables. When you sit down, a small thermos of plain, weak green tea—ရေနွေးကြမ်း (yay nway gyan) [jè nwé dʑáɴ]—is placed on your table absolutely free of charge, serving as a palate cleanser. The main event, however, is the rich, highly caffeinated black tea brewed with evaporated and sweetened condensed milk. Ordering this tea requires knowing the specific code for your preferred milk-to-tea ratio. For a classic, sweet, and creamy cup, you confidently ask for a ချိုဆိမ့် (cho seint) [tɕʰò zeɪ̰ɴ]. If you prefer a stronger, darker brew with less milk, you would order a ကျဆိမ့် (kya seint) [tɕa̰ zeɪ̰ɴ]. To get the attention of the perpetually moving waiters, it is culturally appropriate to make a kissing sound with your lips or simply call out ညီလေး (nyi lay) [ɲì lé], meaning "little brother", which is highly endearing. No teahouse visit is complete without sampling the array of snacks brought to your table, such as crispy deep-fried dough sticks called အီကြာကွေး (e kya kway) [ʔì tɕà kwé] or savory samosas. You only pay for the snacks you actually consume. Spending a slow morning at a *la phet ye saing*, watching the world go by while sipping a perfectly brewed *cho seint*, is an unmissable, quintessential Burmese experience.
Other sections
Keep your progress
Enjoying the phrasebook?
Create a free account to save favorites, track your study, and continue where you stopped.