Most countries drink tea. Myanmar drinks tea too - but it is one of very few countries in the world where people also eat the leaves. Special tea bushes in the cool hills of Shan State are picked young, then packed into bamboo tubes and left to ferment for months. By the time they come out, the leaves are soft and a little bit pickle-like.
Once the pickled leaves are ready, they are dressed with garlic oil and mixed with a long list of crunchy bits - dried split peas, fried chickpeas, peanuts, sesame seeds, garlic chips, dried shrimp (if your family uses it), and chopped tomato. The whole thing is tossed at the table.
Lahpet thoke is a 'sharing food' - it usually arrives on a round plate with the ingredients in separate little piles, and people mix them at the table. Some families serve it after a meal as a kind of dessert-like snack. Others serve it as a starter or a midday treat.
There is even a saying in Myanmar - 'of all the fruit, the mango is the best; of all the meat, the pork; of all the leaves, the lahpet'. The salad is so important that until quite recently it was given as a special gift to settle small arguments between families. 'Eat lahpet together' meant 'we're friends again'.