Scenting dried tea with flowers and other botanicals is one of the oldest and most-guarded tea making tradition from China. From the elegant jasmine tea to the untamed lapsang souchong, this method of adding additional flavor to tea, therefore creating a completely transformed tasting profiles is implemented in many places and resulting in many different classic flavors.
There are many ways to introduce added flavor to tea. In this post, I'm going through a little background story of some of the most well known scented and flavored tea and how they're made. I'm also including some easy recipes that can help you recreate these experiences and conjure your own signature flavor.
In this post, I'll be focusing on the following flavored tea, all of which can be easily made from your kitchen, too:
Jasmine tea: tea with other botanicals
There's nothing more sensual and alluring than the scent of fresh blooms. This is the flowers' desperate yearning to connect to the circle of life, at the expense of their own fleeting perishment. Flowers drop their billowing petals and their enticing nectar dry up soon after they are pollinated. They have no use of their beauty and perfume anymore when their life's purpose is fulfilled: to bear fruit.
This pursue of life also elevates our senses and incites deeper emotions in us. We cut fresh flowers, we distill essential oils. We are obsessed with immortalizing this momentary romance. We use rose water in baklava. We use lavender in skincare. And naturally, we put it in our drinks.
Said to have started back in the Ming dynasty, tea master would pluck jasmine blossom off the bushes. Tea master carefully monitors the temperature to make sure the blooms remain open but not prematurely spent. Then they mix the flowers at their prime with the tea (oxidized and dried). The essence of the jasmines leaks into the tea. The blossoms are removed shortly after they start to wither. What remains is the magical moment of passion. Sometimes, multiple scenting sessions will be done to create optimized result.
2~2.5g tea of your choice
0.5g dry botanicals or 1~2g of fresh botanicals
An easy hack to recreate a scented tea is by adding try botanicals to your tea, like our own blended tea Osmallure, which is a blended tea with baozhong tea and the enchanting osmanthus flowers. Experiment with different tea types and botanicals. More dominating flavors work better with more oxidized tea. Play with proportions, go heavy on the botanicals if you're looking for a floral bomb; show restrain on the added flavor if you're looking for more complexity, especially if you're using premium tea as your base, let its best attributes shine together with the flavor. Here are some common ideas:
· rose + green tea
· verbena + green tea
· pine + oolong tea/black tea
· rosemary + black tea
· mint + green tea
· lavender + black tea
· sage + oolong tea
· clove/cinnamon + pu'er tea
Citrus cured tea
There's nothing better to represent the feeling happiness than the zest of citrus. From sweet oranges to the uplifting limes, to the exotic yuzu to the complex grapefruit, there's a reason why citrus are so heavily utilized in cooking and drinks for the lift. They are undoubtedly the best mood boosters.
This method are very common on the country side among farm steads. In the autumn, before the winter set in. Farmers hollow out the citrus, usually the thicker the skin and the pith, the easier it is to peel and stuff it with dried teas. The smaller the fruit is, the more pronounced the essence of citrus will be. Citrus cured teas need to be bound tightly with strings till they start to look like miniature pie pumpkin. Bear in mind that once it's dehydrated, the pith will shrink down gravely. It's hung up in the sun and left in the open space to dry. Once the skin of the citrus are completely dry, it's then moved indoors out of direct sunlight and hung up where it gets good air movement.
You can starting consuming the tea at this stage, however, the scent will taste light and flavors not fully harmonious. Aging and "curing" tea with this method results in more lingering notes of citrus and in some cases, added perception of sweetness. Some are aged for more than 10 years or beyond! You can venture with different tea types. But teas that age well are inherently better suited for this method.
Below are the steps of how you can cured your own tea with citrus fruit at home. For a fast hack, you can also visit Asian supermarket or traditional Chinese herbal shops and look for tangerine peel 陳皮 instead. Mix dried tangerine peel with your tea and brew it together adds some of the citrus spark and the cured sweetness. Fresh citrus peel can work in a slightly different flavor profile as well. But the fresh pith (the white part of the skin), lemon in particular, can taste bitter if infused for too long.
1 citrus fruit of your choice
200g to 800g of loose leave tea (entirely dependent on the cavity volume of the fruit. Oxidized tea types usually cure better. It's fine if the tea is broken, but not CTC.)
1. Slice the top portion of the fruit off, set aside for later use. Incise with a upward angle, as this will yield more incision surface area, making binding in the later stage easier.
2. Remove flesh completely and leave the fruit intact otherwise. Pack the hallow fruit with loose leaf tea of your choice.
Don't be afraid to crush the tea. The density should resemble pu'er tea cakes. When using citrus with thinner skins, small tears happens and is fine. If the peel gets wet from the juice, bake it at 200°F for 10 to 15 minutes just till the peel no long feels wet but still soft.
3. Place the citrus lid on top of the stuffed fruit. Bind the fruit with twine ad tightly as possible without cutting into the fruit.
You can place a piece of paper over the cut on the fruit as is often seen among tea makers. But as long as the cut is covered and bound tightly, it's not necessary. It's very common to tea the peel especially if you're working with citrus fruit that are smaller or with thinner pith. This is acceptable as long as the cut can be covered and secured.
4. Hang the fruit up to dry in the open that gets a good amount of direct sunlight till the skin is dry and hard. Avoid rainfalls.
5. Relocate the curing citrus tea indoor where it doesn't get direct sunlight but still has good air movement.
6. Cure the tea for at lease 6 months. Once broken open, remove the now scented tea in an air tight container and store in a dark and cool place.
Earl Grey: the enchanting love song of the perfume
It is known as of English origin, embraced by the people of England and worldwide. It's also the core ingredient of the trending London Fog. Story has it that it first came about as a gift from a Chinese tea master to Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey of the United Kingdoms. According to Howick Hall Garden's official website, It was created to suit the well water of the estate. The bergamot was used to mask the taste of lime from the water.
Different than other methods, earl grey is usually done by applying botanical extract or food grade essential oil directly onto the dried tea. In the case of earl grey, cornflowers are sometimes added for its color and subtle taste of sweetness alongside dried lemon/orange peel. This variation of earl grey is sometimes called lady grey.
Black teas are recommended for earl grey because more oxidized tea often competes better with the dominance of bergamot. Very much like cocktail, if you have a black tea that you would really like to highlight, you can use less bergamot, or mix it with other less commending essential oils like orange or lemon. Here are some recipes for a more traditional earl grey profiles:
Classic earl grey
2g of Honeybrook or other black tea
0.5g of bergamot essential oil
Spread essential oil with a mister directly on a ceramic dish or the inside of a container. Add tea to the dish or container. Gently move around the tea leaves. Store finished tea in a air tight container and store in a cool place away from direct light. Let the tea "mature" for a couple days. You will find the tea brews better and the tea characters comes up better.
If you're creating your own earl grey with a premium black tea, adjust your profile so the tea's inept attributes can also shine. For example, instead of using the same amount of essential oil which may be dominating, you can mix or replace bergamot oil with other less intense essential oil such as orange.
Tea forward earl grey
This recipe is specially created for Crimson Jade, a TTES#18 tea from Taiwan that is delicate with notes of wild blossom, cinnamon and mint. Therefore we need a bit more restrain for the added essential oil here to keep the added flavors from becoming overwhelming. Increase the amount of essential oil to your preference. I like to look for balance where you taste mostly the tea with hint of bergamot in the aftertaste. When it comes to added flavor, if it's the first thing you taste, it's too much.
2.5g of Crimson Jade
0.25g of bergamot essential oil
0.25g of orange peel extract
Lapsang Souchong: smoked tea
Traditional lapsang souchong from Wuyi region in China does not come by easily. The process is still closely guarded to this day and it often comes with quite a price tag. It was said that the discovery of this method was rather a story of pivot and adaptation. Legend has it that in the end of the Ming Dynasty, tea masters threw freshly harvested tea on open flame to hasten the drying process so they can flee the attacks from the north. When the estate later resumed the process of the tea, the tea had already taken on the undeniable characters from the smoke. The tea was sold to the Dutch, who fell in love with this sophisticated and complex tea. The leathery smokiness opens up to notes of caramel and hints of dried fruit. The Dutch tea merchants soon went back for more. This demand paved way to improved techniques and process that refine this smoked tea.
Nowadays, lapsang souchong is ususally processed in smoking huts that often reach several stories high. Tea makers often used pine woods for smoking. It is an acquired taste. In a lot of ways, lapsang souchong reminds me of a peaty scotch.
With the help of a cocktail smoker, one can easily experiment and introduce smoke to the tea. I recommend using tea that's highly oxidized and preferably aged. The ideal tea for this experiment should have a ton of sweetness and some mild acidity. A small cocktail smoker is more suited as it would be easier to adjust how smoky the tea ends up to be. Any air tight container will work, but it should have ample room for the smoke to circulate initially. This also avoid the tea from getting heated up.
6g pu'er tea or other highly oxidized and aged tea
cocktail or culinary smoker
woodchips for smoker
1. Place tea in an air tight container.
2. Assemble the smoker on the container as per manufacturer's instruction.
3. Give the smoker 3 bursts of flame, each with an interval of couple seconds in between. This ensures that the container gets a good amount of smoke particles.
4. Secure the lid and let the tea sit at a dark and cool place for at least 30 minutes. Periodically and gently turn the container sideways.
5. Repeat step 4. to incorporate more smoky flavor to the tea to your preference. For a more subdued profile, instead of going lower with the smoke application, I recommend letting the smoked tea "rest" for overnight or longer.
Conclusion
There's something to be said about the process of creating flavors. Taste and aroma invoke emotions deep in us that are unique to ourselves. Through the experiments of binding the different characteristics of different ingredients, we revisit moments in our lives. Through the task of finding a balance between various flavor notes, we are also learning to consolidate life experiences and come to terms with the present. If you would allow it, our taste buds and senses can be shockingly therapeutic.
This is for everyone. This can be as easy as putting two things together.
However, I would be remiss if I don't stress on the fact that there is beauty also, in tradition, the legacy of a way of life, the history and cultural background. While I'm eager to share some easy tea hacks that can be put together in one's own kitchen, as much as I encourage everyone to experiment, I'm appreciative for all the tea masters that had dedicated a huge part of their everyday life to the perfection of their craft for moments to be shared and the pursue of flavor enjoyed. Taste and tune in to traditions are important. This keeps me grounded and it doesn't deny your creativity. I'm grateful for all the deliciousness there is, and I'm always on the discovery for more. I hope this post and those little hacks does not come across as taking light at the arts and crafts of tea making. Instead, I hope it encourages more people to explore the wonderful world of crafted flavor.
Comments