The Times
Tea - The new spice must-have
For a nation that adores a cuppa, it’s surprising more British chefs don’t cook with tea. In Asia, tea has a centuries-old culinary pedigree, while even American chefs seem to use it far more than the Brits. Whether it’s being too long wedded to the idea of just drinking the stuff, or the weight of classic European cooking traditions, British menus have tended just to dabble with a bit of tea-smoked fish here or the odd flavoured pudding there.
But tea cries out to be set free from the pot. The leaves of Camellia sinensis offer a variety and versatility that truly sets them apart. How many herbs are there that you can smoke food over, rub in, brew into fragrant infusions, or just grind up for novel condiments?
“Tea is such an underrated aromatic in flavouring both sweet and savoury food,” says Tonia George, whose groundbreaking Tea Cookbook was published in the UK last year. “Hardly anyone thinks to use it in the kitchen, yet everyone has an array of tea sitting in their cupboards. The tannins in tea add a really special quality to the infusions they make. Earl Grey scents rice beautifully. Teas such as a spiced chai black tea or Lapsang Souchong are feisty with flavour and hold their own against savoury dishes. Sweet dishes are suited to the delicate nuances of jasmine, green and oolong. Or think of tea as a stock for poaching chicken or fish.”
There are four main types of tea, alongside cousins like Rooibos (great for tenderising beef apparently). Unfermented green teas offer delicate, grassy notes when infused, as well as being powdered to produce a popular Asian ingredient called Matcha. Oolong, meanwhile, is semi-fermented, its partially withered leaves offering more rounded, malty flavours.
Dried and left to ferment more fully, the leaves create the stronger black teas that underpin the English cuppa - from builders’ breakfast tea (with or without two sugars) to Lapsang Souchong, which gets its famed smokiness by being dried over pine wood fires or burning pine oil. Other black teas include malty Assam, muscatel-tinged Darjeeling or the sweetly delicate Yunnan. Flavoured teas include the likes of jasmine green tea, Earl Grey with its floral dash of bergamot or Lady Grey, with its extra citrus notes of lemon and orange.
To see tea cooking in action, I visit Pei Wang, whose love of tea as both drink and ingredient has led him to set up regular tea cookery workshops as well as tea appreciation classes (www.teanamu.com) held at a beautiful Victorian coach-house in London‘s Notting Hill.
A samovar bubbles away quietly, providing the flow of hot water we need as Pei takes me through an array of dishes showcasing tea’s adaptability.
Crushing green leaves in a mortar, Pei adds them to a light batter for tempura vegetables, which he augments with a delicious green tea salt made by grinding leaves and salt in a mill - though he explains that black teas can be similarly ground with peppercorns. A humble dish of boiled eggs, meanwhile, is transformed by tea - cooked in a rich, almost sticky Keemun and Puer black tea liquor until hard-boiled, when Pei gently cracks their shells to allow the tea to seep beneath. Peeled, they sit like edible jewels, dark marbling skeining across their previously pale surface.
Three teas go into a delicious salmon dish - Lapsang Souchong ground to dust and rubbed into the pink flesh, fine Puer leaves scattered in to flavour an accompanying dark sauce, Matcha powder whisked into flour for homemade noodles. Iron Goddess of Mercy tea bolsters the cooking liquid for a dessert of poached pear.
If teas like the latter may sound exotically unobtainable, Pei calms my fears by pointing me towards big name stores such as Harrods as well as Chinese grocers and specialist online shops. Substitutions are fine - if you can’t get the prized Dragon Well for your green tea salt, another green tea will do.
Familiar teas star too. “Earl Grey is good as a rub, as well as a broth for fish because of its citrus notes” says Pei. He reels off other combinations - Lady Grey added to apple puree for roast pork, English breakfast with mint and cranberries to go with lamb or turkey, Lapsang Souchong to marinade duck before cooking in fat infused with Puer.
Harrods’ commitment to stocking a wide range of teas is complemented by having an American executive chef, James Wierzelewski, with a passion for tea cooking. He reels off tips. “When infusing with tea, take citrus juices like lemon or orange, add in an assertive black tea - Cameroon is a good example - and use the liquid to cook,” he says. James is also a fan of tea as a rub for both meat and fish. “A basic tea rub would consist of Kenya black tea, ground ginger, cinnamon stick, coriander seeds, black peppercorn, brown sugar and salt.”
James’ influence is clear on the store‘s list of tea-cooked dishes, which tick pretty much every tea-cooking box - beef brisket braised in tea, green tea poached shrimp, tea-smoked mushrooms, tea-infused vinaigrettes, fruits poached in Darjeeling to enjoy either on their own or added to pates and terrines.
Simon Hulstone is a rising star chef who features tea regularly at his Michelin-garlanded restaurant Elephant in Torquay. As well as a beef dish cooked in tea which he prepared at this year’s prestigious Bocuse d’Or competition in France, Hulstone’s menu offers breast of pigeon with Earl Grey jelly and tea-smoked guinea fowl. “Tea offers another natural spice,” he says simply. “It adds a point of interest.”
Sharp-eyed viewers of C4’s series about Heston Blumenthal‘s efforts to pep up Little Chef may have spotted the appearance of a green tea dessert on the motorway menu, though the molecular master‘s own gaff offers tea at the start of proceedings rather than the end with a lime, green tea and vodka mouthwash - a concoction in which the green tea, according to The Fat Duck’s food scientist Chris Young, provides “astringent polyphenols that help get the saliva going”.
Though other ingredients give Blumenthal‘s palate sharpener a kick, Tonia George believes tea works best as a subtle contribution. “Tea cookery is about delicate understatement, not provocative flavour. The flavour should tap you on the shoulder, not crash into you,” she says. “Using tea is the antithesis of Jamie's crash-into-you-flavour-assaults with tons of pounded herbs and spices.”
Brewing time is important for optimum flavour - 30-45 seconds for green tea, 1-3 minutes for oolong, 2-5 minutes for black tea. Some tea drinkers may also be aghast to hear that boiling water is a mistake. “Too hot water just kills the leaves,” says Pei Wang sternly. “All their astringency comes out.”
Green tea, it transpires, needs water between 70-80C, oolong 80-90C, black teas 90C+ but not boiling. When I ask how anyone can judge these temperature, both Pei and Tonia use the same unexpected phrase: “Listen to your kettle!” The first hum and wisps of steam come around 70C, popping noises start at 80C, and when the steam gets intense but before boiling you’re into the 90s.
Asked if there is a tea that stands at the pinnacle, Pei points me towards Puer (or Pu-erh). Traditionally harvested from old mountain-growing wild tea plants, the best comes from Yunnan in SW China. The only tea that breaks the general rule ‘fresh is best‘, Puer benefits from ageing like fine wine, with different years offering different tastes. It can be hugely expensive, with older and more precious vintages often kept in specialist vaults in China, the precious dark leaves compressed into easy-to-store “cakes“, typically weighing around 500g each - a throwback to the days of horseback caravans wending their way along the ancient Chinese tea routes.
One of the world’s most sought-after Puer tea cakes is, however, in England rather than China - in Harrods to be precise. Made from the finest 1950s Puer a single cake costs a mere £15,000 - a bit much for a cup of tea in these recessionary times, even for those who might have the money. I’m happy enough with the oolong Madeleine Pei graciously offers at the end of our afternoon - washed down with a nice cup of tea, naturally.