Pulling Warmth: Teh Tarik and Everyday Life in Malaysia’s Culinary Tourism

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.25.2.2026.4222

Keywords:

teh tarik, culinary tourism, visual ethnography, photo essay, tropical tourism, Malaysia, tropical urban tourism, everyday life

Abstract

This photo essay explores teh tarik [pulled tea] as an everyday practice through which cultural bonds, social encounters, and shared meanings are produced in Malaysia’s tropics. Rather than approaching teh tarik merely as a culinary tourism product, the essay understands it as a form of embodied communication shaped by gestures, heat, rhythm, sounds, and social presence. Drawing on visual ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2024 and 2025 across sites in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia’s Batam Island, the photographs presented here narrow our lens to the areas of Kuala Lumpur to capture moments of preparation, waiting, sitting together, and casual interactions in kopitiams, street stalls, markets, and urban spaces. The visual narratives reveal how teh tarik mediates everyday encounters among locals, migrants, and tourists, allowing diverse identities to coexist without formal negotiation. Through a reflective photo essay format, this work shows that culinary tourism experiences in the tropics often operate through intimacy, repetition, and a shared atmosphere rather than spectacle or promotion. In doing so, this essay highlights teh tarik as a living culinary heritage that connects bodies, spaces, and memories, offering insights into the emotional life of tropical urban streets and everyday cultural landscapes.

Author Biographies

Eka Yusup, Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang, Indonesia

Eka Yusup was born in Karawang, West Java, Indonesia. Since 2009, he has served as a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Communication Science at Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang. He earned his Bachelor’s in Journalism (2007), Master’s in Communication Science (2013), and Doctorate in Communication Science (2019) from Universitas Padjadjaran. Previously, he worked as a journalist for Pikiran Rakyat and a reporter for Trans TV. His research interests include cultural communication, auto/ethnography, media, and performativity in local performance arts. Beyond academia, he writes poetry, prose, and reflective essays. His creative and academic works have appeared in Asian Anthropology, Journal of Progressive Human Services, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Communication Teacher (Taylor & Francis), Anthropology and Humanism, Museum Anthropology (Wiley), Asiatic (IIUM Press, Malaysia), Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies (SAGE Publications), and eTropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics (James Cook University Press, Australia). From 2023 to 2024, he served as a Policy Expert for the Karawang Regional House of Representatives (DPRD). Correspondence: eka.yusup@fisip.unsika.ac.id

Reddy Anggara, Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang, Indonesia

Reddy Anggara is a lecturer and researcher in communication at Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang, Indonesia, where he has been a permanent faculty member since 2011. He completed his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung. In addition to his home institution, he taught as a part-time lecturer at several universities in Jakarta. His research focuses on environmental communication, development communication, marketing communication, and tourism communication, with particular attention to everyday cultural practices and community-based perspectives.

Lukmanul Hakim, Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang, Indonesia

Lukmanul Hakim is a lecturer in the Department of Government Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang, Indonesia, where he has taught since 2008. He completed his doctoral degree in 2019 and previously served as the Vice Dean of the faculty from 2012 to 2018, as well as a member of the University Senate from 2014 to 2023. His research interests include government studies, public policy, and Islamic religious education, with a focus on institutional governance and public affairs in the Indonesian context.

References

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Published

2026-04-11

How to Cite

Yusup, E., Anggara, R., & Hakim, L. (2026). Pulling Warmth: Teh Tarik and Everyday Life in Malaysia’s Culinary Tourism. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 25(2), 211–231. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.25.2.2026.4222

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 2 (2026): Tourisms’ Tristes Tropiques: Cultural Landscapes

Section

Articles

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