The Economist.
Walk down the street of any city or town in China, and it won't be long before you spot something spicy.
Whether it's a hot pot restaurant or an aisle of spicy peanuts in a supermarket.
In fact, last year, Meituan, China's biggest food delivery app
reported that nearly 80% of restaurants now offer spicy food, a taste known as la in Chinese.
But how do we get here?
China has so many different regional cuisines.
Why is spice becoming this nationwide obsession?
I'm David Rennie, The Economist's Beijing Bureau Chief, and Alice is away this week,
so I'm joined by our Drum Tower producer, Jiahao Chen, based in London.
This week, we're asking, how is it that chili peppers have become the flavor of modern China?
And what does that tell us about the China today?
This is Drum Tower from The Economist.
Jiahao, you're in London.
It's good to see you, it's been a while.
Yes, it's strange because I'm much more used to speaking to you in person.
But we are talking about food, which feels weirdly appropriate.
Yes, I do worry that in our dealings with each other, reporting in Beijing together,
that I've bored you too much with a lot of my food talks.
No, I think, well, you'd probably have a better worry that I'm going to starve to death because you're not here.