Tea, Tea Knowledge
Top 6 Creative Tea Recipes & Methods
Tea contains an abundance of rich nutritional value and can be consumed as a beverage, or as a food additive. Nutrient-rich tea contains polyphenols, an organic compound that works as an antioxidant. Plus, many varieties such as oolong and green tea, are rich in amino acid L-theanine, which may improve mood and sleep.
Cooking with tea doesn’t have to be complicated as it can easily be added to most of your favourite recipes. Along with the added health benefits, this small tweak can also bring out more flavour in your dishes!
Tea is a versatile cooking ingredient that is more common in our daily life than you may think. For example, matcha is an ingredient often found in desserts. If you are curious as to how black, green, white, and oolong teas can elevate your next home-cooked meal, scroll down to explore some fun cooking ideas.
What areTea Recipes and Methods?
How to incorporate tea into cooking?
1. Brewing – Tea Recipes
Tea is most commonly added into dishes once brewed, however, it is also possible to infuse desserts like ice cream or panna cotta by steeping tea leaves or tea bags directly into dairy products. If you are wanting to add sweetness, try brewing chamomile, lemon verbena or lavender. For savoury dishes, hojicha and oolong tea are ideal choices.
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2. Marinate Ingredients and Rub – Tea Recipes
The smoky flavour of heavily roasted tea leaves goes well with marinated meats and vegetables, and brewed tea naturally tenderises meat. In addition, you can grind dried tea leaves as a herb to knead meat.
3. Add in Broth – Tea Recipes
Chinese and western chefs are known for using tea as an additive to complete the fillings of dumplings, ravioli, and tortellini, regardless of whether meat based or vegetarian.
Vegetable stock can easily be swapped out for steeped teas when making a broth, while mild, aromatic jasmine or white teas are great with poached fish.
4. Stir-fried – Tea Recipes
Tea leaves are suitable for adding to stir-fried dishes and even to popcorn kernels during the popping process to intensify the aroma. Tea leaves are also an effective and healthy alternative to crisp up meats and vegetables.
5. Smoothie – Tea Recipes
Smoothies are the perfect summer drink! Add ½ teaspoon of finely ground tea leaves or matcha powder to your smoothie for a boost of antioxidant content. In addition, seasonal fruits can also be added to make healthy and delicious smoothies.
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6. Baked – Tea Recipes
Tea is often paired with baked goods whether it be matcha cookies, oolong tea biscuits, or black tea bagels. Floral Earl Gray is always just the right aroma booster for pound cakes or shortbread, while herbal mint brings a new richness to brownies.
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In the realm of tea, creativity dances upon the leaves, birthing avant-garde concoctions that tantalize the senses. Let your imagination steep in a symphony of flavors with our creative tea recipes.
Tea Classroom – Creative Tea Food
A selection of creative tea dishes from around the world
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Tea Brewed – Tea Dishes
Many Japanese restaurants like to use green tea for their soups. A pinch of green tea leaves is perfect with onions, garlic, and ginger, adding a natural flavour to the soup and blending nicely with the more tangy, salty flavours.
What’s more, the use of tea can also cut the greasiness in food. When the tea is paired with the warming and soothing properties of chicken broth, the tea’s antioxidants can help speed recovery from the common cold.
In Southeast Asia, green tea is commonly used with mint to blend into local hot and sour dishes, such as Thai chicken noodle soup.
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The Combination of Tea and Meat – Tea Dishes
Tea can effectively reduce the bloody taste of meat as well as tenderise meat.
The use of tea with meat, particularly lamb, is very popular in the Middle East. One creative example of this is lamb burger with mint green tea pesto.
Tea bucket chicken is the most famous tea-meat dish among Taiwanese. The tea leaves are used to smoke the chicken, adding a nice level of smokiness and texture.
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Tea-flavored jam & stuffing – Tea Dishes
The use of tea is not just limited to cooking, it can also be used to make a range of condiments. In Taiwan for instance, tea leaves are contained in the filling of pineapple cakes; French jam making methods can be utilised to make oolong milk spread.
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Tea Pasta, Noodles – Tea Dishes
Just like any infused pasta, whether it be squid ink, chilli, saffron, or spanish, tea powders including green, earl grey and matcha can be used to infuse pasta doughs. Going beyond pasta, the same methods can be seen used to produce Japanese green tea soba noodles and Taiwanese Sun Moon Lake black tea noodles.
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Ochazuke, Nara tea rice, tea porridge – Tea Dishes
The combination of tea and rice has a long history in Japan. In the Nara area of Japan, there is tea porridge handed down from the Edo period. This is a simple dish made with tea brew instead of water.
Ochazuke can nourish the stomach, cut through greasiness, and relieve hangovers, making it one of the perfect ending dishes in Japanese cuisine.
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How to Brew Tea? ABoxTik of Tea Series
Like a painter’s palette, our creative tea recipes blend colors, aromas, and textures into a masterpiece of taste. Elevate your tea experience to an art form, where every sip is a stroke of inspiration.
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High-quality Taiwanese local tea bags are recommended for creative tea dishes
Aside from the conventional use of brewing tea, combining the leaves into dishes such as rice dumplings and Hong Kong-style glutinous rice chicken just goes to show how versatile tea can be, and how important tea is to our daily lives.
ABoxTik offers a range of locally sourced Taiwanese tea complete in three-dimensional triangular tea bags for added convenience in enjoying your next cup of excellent tea. We welcome you to discover our premium Taiwanese tea bag range at ABoxTik.