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cooking with tea

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artisanal tea pairings

The perfect pair: matching exquisite teas with equally exquisite foods

Taste and Flavor

We all enjoy a good meal prepared with love, intention, and skill. And now, farm to table — that which was once obscure — is considered a given. It is not even an added value, but rather something that we, as folks that like to dine out or purchase food from farmer’s markets, have come to expect. Choosing just the right eggplant for that rice dish we are excited to try, or noticing the fresh texture and flavor of the autumn harvested, delicata squash in that risotto from our favorite restaurant down the street. We eat food to relax, to be with friends, to have a treat, maybe to explore something new. The full experience of a lovely glass of wine with just the perfect pasta.  A cup of nutty coffee that really wraps up a meal. Artisanal tea that has been grown at peak elevations and crafted by a…

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artisanal tea pairings

Pairing Teas with Food

Cooking With Tea

In ancient times, the Chinese thought of tea as the perfect beverage to pair with food when it came to health options and balancing what went into their systems. Tea cuts oil and fat, helps digestion, and then, detoxes the liver — Not a bad item to ingest even today when eating meals like dim sum that consists of fatty pork, high cholesterol seafood, or even some questionable fermented fish. The Chinese strived to always eat very balanced meals, however, sometimes one is not in a position to do so. In the case of the ancient Tibetans, where their diet was high in animal meats and vegetables were unavailable, they relied on drinking tea with their meals to help with digestion. Tea was also considered to be quite effective against alcohol toxicity, so the Mai Tai drinker would finish off their binge with tea, to regain functionality. Tea has been a functional…

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Pu-erh Mushroom Broth with Udon Noodles and Vegetables

Cooking With Tea

Recipe courtesy Melanie Franks: INGREDIENTS: 1500g water 5g Kombu 50g dried mushrooms, rehydrated in water overnight 30g ginger, charred 100g carrot, charred 100g cabbage, charred 4 cloves roasted garlic 50g Puerh tea 20g soy sauce 20g red wine vinegar Salt to taste 1. Put water and kombu into a pot and bring the mixture up to 175˙F. 2. Remove kombu from the water. 3. Add charred vegetables, roasted garlic, and rehydrated mushrooms to water and simmer for 30 minutes and remove from heat. 4. While the broth is still hot add the Pu-erh tea and steep for 10 minutes. 5. Strain broth and add soy sauce, red wine vinegar, and salt. 6. Serve broth with noodle, sautéed mushrooms, poached egg, and seasonal vegetables.

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Oolong Scented Sticky Rice

Cooking With Tea

Recipe courtesy Melanie Franks: INGREDIENTS: 200g Glutinous Rice, soaked overnight 400ml Wood Dragon Oolong Tea 2 cloves, minced 2 shallots, minced 50g Wood Dragon Oolong Tea in a sachet Salt to taste 1. Sauté shallots and garlic in olive oil until soft and tender. 2. Add strained rice to the aromatics. 3. Add the Oolong Tea and Sachet and bring to a boil. 4. Once the tea comes to a boil reduce heat to a simmer and stir occasionally until rice is cooked. 5. Discard tea sachet and season rice. 6. Pour rice into non-stick pan to cool. (alternatively rice can be served right away) 7. Once rice is cool, cut the rice into squares or circles and sear on both side. 8. Heat rice cake through in oven. 9. Serve rice with sautéed vegetable and a fried egg.

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Matcha Flat Bread

Cooking With Tea

Recipe courtesy Melanie Franks: INGREDIENTS: 1½ cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons matcha powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons olive oil ½ cup cold water 1 teaspoon sea salt 2 teaspoon genmaicha 1 egg white, whisked 1.Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Pulse the flour, matcha tea, salt, sugar, and olive oil in the food processor until evenly distributed. 2.Add the water and pulse just until the dough starts to stick together (about 10 seconds). Remove the dough, press together gently with your hands to form a single ball, and cut into four pieces. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator. 3.Roll out each individual piece of dough as thin as you possibly can. I like to use a pasta machine for this process. If the dough starts to shrink up, let it rest a little longer. You want the dough to get very, very…

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LuShan Creme Brûlée

Cooking With Tea

From F. Lit Yu’s soon to be released “Haute Tea Cuisine, New Techniques for Infusing French Food with Tea” Photo by Ching-Wei Jiang    INGREDIENTS: 1 ounce LuShan Clouds & Mist Green Tea 5 1/2 cups heavy cream 6 egg yolks 6 tbsp sugar Additional sugar for caramelizing 1. Bring the heavy cream to a boil and add the LuShan Clouds and Mist. Turn off the heat, cover, and extract for one hour. Strain and discard the used tea leaves. Preheat oven to 375˚F. 2. In a mixing bowl, combine the tea-infused heavy cream with the yolks and the sugar and beat well with a hand-mixer or a whisk. Pour into oven-proof ramekings and set on a deep baking pan. Pour half an inch of water into the pan holding the ramekins. 3. Loosely cover the pan with foil and bake for 25 minutes. The center of the custard should…

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