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 a teaser, a reveal commercial, and product breakdowns.

KFC has been in Yangon since 2015

Myanmar's first KFC opened on July 7, 2015, at Bogyoke Aung San Market in the Yangon commercial hub. Yoma Strategic Holdings, a real estate and development conglomerate, held the franchise license from Yum Brands of the United States. It was the first of the "Big Three" American chains, ahead of McDonald's and Burger King, to open in the country.

Yoma's executive chairman, Serge Pun, made the case for the bet when the venture was announced. "Chicken is a staple protein in Myanmar," he said.

Eleven years later, the brand is no longer asking to be accepted as a foreign import. It is borrowing the grammar of a local dish. Lahpet htamin has a slot built into it, the crunchy topping that gives each spoonful its texture. KFC found the slot and put chicken in it.

KFC found the slot and put chicken in it.

Fast food chains have localized menus for decades, and India's KFC outlets know the routine well, with rice bowls and paneer on the board. The Myanmar move goes a step further. It names the dish, credits its structure, and offers one swap.

Burmese food already lives in India

South Asian readers have eaten their way around this dish family without always knowing it. Khow suey, the coconut noodle bowl served at Indian weddings and potlucks, descends from Burmese ohn no khao swe. It traveled with Indians who left Burma, many of them in the 1942 evacuation ahead of the Japanese advance and more of them in the 1960s after the military takeover and the nationalizations that followed.

In Chennai, the Burma Bazaar area still sells atho, a tossed noodle salad that arrived with those families. Kolkata kept its own Burmese kitchens. These dishes carry the same logic as lahpet thoke: soft, sour, hot, and crunchy in one bowl.

That is why the KFC campaign reads differently from here. Anyone raised on a plate where texture is assembled from separate parts, the sprinkle of sev on chaat, the crushed papad over rice, understands the joke and the risk. Swap the crunch and you have changed the dish, whatever the commercial says.

You can order tea leaf rice in the United States

Just not often. Most American Burmese menus stop at the salad. Pa Lian Burmese Restaurant in Wheaton, Illinois, goes further and lists Tea Leaf with Rice, fermented tea leaves over white rice, finished with fried fava beans, yellow beans, peanuts, sesame, and sunflower seeds.

Near Washington, Mandalay Restaurant and Cafe in Silver Spring, Maryland, serves its Green Tea Leaf Salad with fried garlic and crispy yellow peas, and sells white rice on the side. Order both, spoon the salad over the rice, and you are close to lahpet htamin without a plane ticket.

Whether it works is a matter of taste and a matter for Yangon, where the people who grew up on lahpet htamin get to vote at the counter.

If it ever reaches the atho stalls of Chennai and Kolkata in conversation, they will have opinions. I would like to be at that table.

Works Cited

"Fast Food Frenzy as First KFC Outlet Opens." Frontier Myanmar, www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/fast-food-frenzy-as-first-kfc-outlet-opens/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"KFC Myanmar Launches Film Challenging Lahpet Htamin Tradition with Popcorn Chicken." Campaign Brief Asia, campaignbriefasia.com/?p=193160. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"KFC Shows How to Change Myanmar's Eating Habits." Nikkei Asian Review, reposted by Open Development Mekong, opendevelopmentmekong.net/news/kfc-shows-how-to-change-myanmars-eating-habits/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"Fermented Tea Leaves, Chickpeas and Mohinga: A Night of Myanmar Food and Beer at S Double One Restaurant, Desa Sri Hartamas." Malay Mail, 29 Aug. 2025, www.malaymail.com/news/eat-drink/2025/08/29/fermented-tea-leaves-chickpeas-and-mohinga-a-night-of-myanmar-food-and-beer-at-s-double-one-restaurant-desa-sri-hartamas/189260. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"Mandalay Restaurant & Cafe Menu." Toast, toast.app/r/mandalay-restaurant-cafe/order. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"No Other Crunch Is Needed." Ads of the World, KFC Myanmar, July 2026, www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/no-other-crunch-is-needed. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"Pa Lian Burmese Restaurant Menu." AllMenus, www.allmenus.com/il/wheaton/575329-pa-lian-burmese-restaurant/menu/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

"Yum! to Enter Myanmar." Inside Retail Asia, insideretail.asia/?p=9152. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.