When a cha chaan teng in Busan, South Korea, made it into this year’s Michelin Guide, it was a sign of how far the Hong Kong tea restaurants have come since the 1950s and 60s. Both at home and abroad, cha chaan teng are hotter than boiling-hot Ceylon tea poured through a milk-tea cotton “stocking”. In Hong Kong, long queues form outside Milk Cafe branches, while social-media buzz surrounds the ramshackle Lan Fong Yuen on Gage Street, Central. Overseas, these cafes have spread to cities such as Seattle and New York.

A popular working-class mealtime fixture since the mid-20th century, cha chaan teng have long been a Hong Kong mainstay. So why, in 2026, are they drawing fresh attention in culinary circles online and off?

A marriage of Cantonese and Western fare, cha chaan teng can ply a hungry guest with a macaroni soup starter, a satay beef noodle main and an egg tart for dessert, blending cuisines from far-flung places in one meal. And then there’s the speed at which the food is served. Hong Kong’s diners-cum-cultural landmarks are still as fast, furious and familiar as they ever were. Some, such as the Jordan institution Australia Dairy Company, are so brisk, in fact, that they have drawn criticism from tourists (notably, rarely from unfazed locals) for rushing customers into seats, through their order and back out the door.

And yet, despite the complaints, the number of tourists adding cha chaan teng to their itinerary grows. The draw, perhaps, is less the fare than the feeling of sentimentality and the yearning for simpler times.

It’s likely that the “Chinamaxxing” social media trend has had a hand in this, adding fuel to the proverbial fire and increasingly pushing Gen-Z audiences into the bosom of Chinese nostalgia. With their wooden booths, mosaic floors and colourful melamine tableware, cha chaan teng are catnip to influencers, and their authentic vintage interiors make for the perfect background in just about any frame. With the wide availability of ring lights, garish, washed-out lighting is no longer a problem. So popular are cha chaan teng among content creators that staff at Mido Cafe in Yau Ma Tei have had to restrict photography so that they can keep serving – rather than swerving selfies.

As a symbol of Hong Kong’s East-meets-West fusion, as well as of the resilience of local culture and egalitarian social spaces, the cha chaan teng embodies the softer side of a city often thought of as sharp-edged. Theirs is a social-media-friendly aesthetic – think idiosyncratic and worn at the edges – and businesses stand ready to capitalise.