The Chicken Joins the Tea Leaf Salad
By Shashi Bellamkonda | October 3, 2026 | Food and Culture Myanmar eats its tea. Tea is native to the country, and it is consumed as a drink and as a food in its own right, most famously as lahpet, the fermented leaves that anchor lahpet thoke, the tea leaf salad. Garlic and chili sharpen it. Beans and nuts crunch against the soft leaves. Sour, salty, and spicy arrive together. In July 2026, KFC Myanmar decided the crunch was negotiable. The campaign is called "No Other Crunch Is Needed." It centers on lahpet htamin, tea leaf rice, which is traditionally finished with fried beans, roasted peanuts, and dried shrimp. KFC kept the rice and the tea leaves and swapped the toppings for its Popcorn Chicken. The pitch rests on an old belief about the dish, that more toppings make it better, and the campaign sets out to challenge exactly that. KFC's internal creative team made the work with Play Production in Yangon, and it rolled out as...
