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Pairing for Beginners

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0500

When I discuss the importance of pairing tea and food in foodservice environments, I always stress that the best that can be offered is a guideline—a helping hand to achieve a nicely balanced list of tea that complements the food offered by your establishment. Whether your menu consists of foie gras or bagels and cream cheese, I don’t believe the process has to be any more complex. Rather, pairing tea with food should be an enjoyable step in designing your overall menu.

Before you begin, you must realize that tasting doesn’t require an extremely sophisticated knowledge of food or tea. If you already enjoy food on any level, then you probably have a tasting vocabulary, however expansive or limited it may be. Never be afraid to express what comes to mind when you are tasting tea, because no impression is too slight, and all observations lead to Rome, so to speak.

So what does it all mean? Well, now that you have broken down the complex profile of a single tea you should understand how important it is to match that profile with complementary smells, textures and flavors of food.

From Planet-Tea.com

Tea, Like Wine, is Open to Adventure

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0500

All too often, tea is lumped into the same category as coffee. So it makes sense that when some people think of pairing tea with foods, they ask themselves, "What works well with coffee?" However, most tea lovers will quickly tire of the limited choices (doughnuts and biscotti) available under this coupling. The most effective way to approach this subject is not through coffee, rather through another gourmet product known for its complementary nature: wine.

Any wine connoisseur can inform you that, while whites pair up with poultry and reds with meat, there are many wines that cross these lines. This revelation has led to many adventuresome pairings and new taste sensations in the wine world.

Fortunately, teas pairings are also open to exploration. It has been a standard for decades that black tea can only be paired with foods and all others must stand alone. Countless Victorian tearooms provide all the proof necessary: a Summer Darjeeling served with Cucumber finger sandwiches, cookies and biscuits. It is rare to see a White Peony perform as an understudy. However, using the revolution of wine pairing as inspiration, the time has come to reconsider tea's standards.

Thanks to the delicate, earthy taste greens like Dragonwell or Sencha are wonderful with seafood or fish fillets, salads, or chicken. Bright and lively-flavored teas, such as the blacks from Sri Lanka or Assam, India, are great accompaniments to beef or steak dishes or spicy foods from Mexican, Italian, or Indian cuisine. Although it is traditional to have Oolongs with Chinese dishes, one may argue that rich, spicy teas, like the black Yunnan or Keemun, offer more complexity and layers to the experience of tea pairings.

For desserts, seek out the chocolaty essence of a Golden Monkey or English Breakfast black tea. These exquisite Chinese teas are hearty, rich, and taste perfect when complementing baked custards, chocolate cakes, or a rich, dense strawberry shortcake. Assam is another rich black tea that complements chocolate desserts, yet is a surprising foil against lemony or custard dishes. Due to the naturally sweet, floral nature of a Jasmine, it is also ideal to serve with a dessert.

As a digestive, nothing is better, more satisfying or more calming than an aged Chinese Pu-erh- the darker, the stronger, the better. The only intentionally aged tea (it is actually buried underground!), it is particularly good after a multiple-course feast like a Thanksgiving or similar heavy holiday meal. If you're a milk-and-cookies snacker before bedtime, try an herbal fruit infusion instead. You'll sleep better, and will wake up feeling great.

As an endnote, it is important to note that some teas, such as the Formosa Oolong and Pouchong, seem to demand solo drinking, quiet, and something restful to look upon.

The days when Earl Grey was sipped with a breakfast of scones and clotted cream are not gone, but must make room on the table for some new, creative combos. With as many teas and foods that exist in the world, the possibilities are endless. The practice of pairing food with tea is not an exact science, rather an art. Discovering what tastes fit individual palates is something that can only be done on the personal level.

From Teaclass.com

Natural Pairings: Look Local

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0500

Basic Information on pairing different types of teas with food.

The flavors of regional teas evolved with local cuisine just like wine evolved with its local cuisine. So a good way to think about natural pairings is to look at the cuisine from the tea regions. For instance, nothing could go with seafood better than Japanese Green teas - such as Sencha, or Genmaicha. To take this a step further green teas in general (including many of those from China, Korea, and Vietnam) are superb with seafood. Rice and green tea is also a natural fit. In many traditional Japanese meals the course before dessert is often Ochazuke - rice in a green tea broth often with salmon.

From Qualiteas.com

Brief Guide to Biscuits

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0500

Biscuits We all love them don't we. But what exactly is a biscuit?

Taxonomy of biscuits

Cakes Usually easily distinguished from biscuits by their sheer size however individual cakes can be a bit tricker, for instance the macaroon. Also the Jaffa Cake despite having the word cake in its name can confuse some people.

Crackers Crackers are aimed at savory use such as cheese and crackers, however you sometimes get those hovis sweetmeal digestives, I don't know why, in big boxes of crackers, which is obviously confusing. Generally you wouldn't want to dunk one in your tea.

Chocolate covered Half way between biscuits and chocolate bars, are the chocolate covered biscuits. A bit of a grey area but this is where we encounter individual foil wraps, and strange quasi cake, biscuit hybrids like the Waggon Wheel. Also the home of the Jacobs Club biscuit, although this is a sad shadow of its former self thanks to the French again.

Chocolate Bars The Kit Kat is a good example of the transitional phase from chocolate covered to full chocolate bars like the picnic.

How to spot biscuits

* They come in packets * They have two sides * You could dunk them in tea

Entry level

* They come in clear cellophane wrappers * They aren't so nice that you could eat a whole packet * They are homogeneous

Mid range

* Anything with a currant, or some sort of fruit in it * Twin layer affair with some sort of cream up the middle * Wrapper has pictures on it. * Some sort of USP

Luxury

* Any thing with chocolate on top. * May be in a cardboard box

Some suggestions (from the UK):

Abbey Crunch Abricot Barquettes Afghans All Butter Arnott's Gaiety Bahlsen Afrika Biscato Spicy and Plain Digesta Blue Riband Breakaway Breton Biscuit Super Review Cadbury Oat and Fruit Caxton Pink'n'Whites Chocolate Caramel Club Milk Coconut Cream Cornish Fairings Custard Cream Digestive Fig Roll Fox's Classic Fruit Shortcake Girl Scout Cookies Graham cracker Griffins Sultana Pasties Happy Faces HobNob Iced Gems Jam Sandwich Creams KitKat Marks and Spencer Dunking Cookies Maryland Double Choc Chip Cookie Nabisco Nutter Butter Oreo Penguin Ponghak Butter Ringtons Ginger Snap Romany Creams Sainsbury's Lemon Thin Sarah Nelson's Gingerbread Shortcake Strawberry Newton Tesco's Organic Fruit Bake Biscuits ToffyPops Wagon Wheel Waitrose Almond Biscuits Weston's Wagon Wheels

From NiceCupofTeaandaSitDown.com