Mini culture-slash-history lesson: two essential components of Chinese tradition are Yum Cha (drink tea) and Dim Sum (touch heart). The roots of both customs can be traced to the Silk Road, a crucial series of trade routes that connected the East and the West and allowed a cultural and material exchange for centuries. Traders traversed the Silk Road routes with spices, materials, livestock, and goods for months at a time, periodically stopping to rest at teahouses along the route. Those teahouses offered small, bite-sized snacks to visitors -- in other words, dim sum.