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Tea Recipes

7 Tea-Spiked Chocolate Desserts for Valentine’s Day

February 12, 2018

Roses, hearts, and chocolate are the three pillars of Valentine’s Day planning. This year, bake your valentine a unique kind of chocolate dessert—a tea-infused chocolate dessert. In brownies, cookies, cupcakes, and tarts, tea and chocolate are a perfect pair, just like you and your valentine. Sweeten your night this February 14th with one of these recipes:

1) Earl Grey Chocolate Pots de Crème

These pots de crème from Gourmande are gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, and downright delicious. Described as “super silky” and “dark and complex,” the author promises that “each spoonful is plush and velvety like the center of a good chocolate truffle.” Prep time is 20 minutes, and cook time is 25 minutes, making these treats an easy-to-make choice for your Valentine’s Day dessert.

2) Vegan Strawberry Matcha Brownie Tarts with Coconut Whipped Cream

These tarts from The Baking Spoon are adorable, and incorporate two Valentine’s Day must-haves: strawberries and whipped cream. A brownie shell is filled with matcha cream filling and topped with coconut whipped cream and a strawberry garnish for a bite-sized, picture-perfect dessert that will delight and impress your date. As a bonus, the recipe is vegan, and uses healthy substitutes like carob powder, maple syrup, and cashews for unnatural sweeteners.

3) Double Chocolate Irish Tea Infused Oat Muffins

Present your valentine with a basket of these muffins from Half Baked Harvest to score major points this year. The recipe calls for 2 black tea bags, maple syrup, steel cut oats, and dark chocolate, among other ingredients. Prep and cook time combined equals about 30 minutes, and yields 18 muffins. Since they’re muffins, you can also eat these chocolate desserts for breakfast!

4) Chocolate Dipped Tea Infused Shortbread Cookies

These cookies from Dish It Girl require just a few ingredients to pack a sweet punch. The author used Puerh Indulgence Good Earth Tea to spice up shortbread, grinding the tea leaves into a fine powder in the food processor before combining them with the cookie batter. Dipped in fudgy chocolate, these tea-infused shortbread cookies are great with a hot cuppa and a serving of fruit.

5) Green Tea Filled Oreo Cookies

These cookies from The Chocolate Bottle have a cakey texture, thanks to the use of Devil’s Food Cake mix. Green tea, cream cheese, and sugar combine forces to make a sweet, tea-infused filling. Dip each cookie sandwich in chocolate for an extra dose of chocolate!

6) Chocolate Cake with Tea-Infused Berry Frosting

This beautiful cake recipe from Beginning with Bergamot is perfect if you and your better half have big appetites. Treat yourselves to a generous slice (or two) on Valentine’s Day, and then share it the rest of the week to make Valentine’s Day last a little longer this year. This recipe’s tea-infused berry frosting makes this chocolate cake standout, and the strawberries and raspberries that top it make for a picture-worthy dessert hour.

7) Earl Grey Chocolate Tart

This tart recipe from Pemberley Cup and Cakes uses two tea bags’ worth of Earl Grey tea to spice up the chocolate ganache filling. Paired with a sweet tart crust, this dessert will satisfy any sweet tooth this Valentine’s Day.

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Tea Guides

5 Delicious Tea-Food Pairings

November 24, 2016

We’ve become savvier consumers. We want to know where our ingredients come from, we’re open to trying new ethnic flavors, and basic just doesn’t cut it anymore. We don’t want just any old tea to go with our dish. We want a tea that complements the dish, or vice versa. This demand has sparked the new job of tea sommelier. According to NPR, a tea sommelier is “the hot new thing in tea pairing.” Just like a wine sommelier would recommend a specific wine to accompany your meal, a tea sommelier knows just the right tea to go with your grub. Tea expert Aurelie Bessiere told NPR, “What you want to happen in your mouth is to feel the different layers of taste and flavors of both tea and food.” If you don’t have a tea sommelier on speed dial or the time to take a tea pairing class, here’s five food-tea pairing recommendations to kickstart your knowledge of this new art:

1) Kabuse Green Tea & Chocolate

According to NPR, “The kabuse is a green tea with high levels of umami—a pleasant, savory taste—as well as sweet and salty. The article says that “when these three flavors hit melted chocolate, you unlock a flavor similar to pure cantaloupe.” Strange, but color us curious. Kubuse and chocolate, please!

2) Butterfly of Taiwan Oolong & Sheep Cheese

NPR also recommends this pairing because “ the cheese enhances the fruity (think apple puree and candied citrus) and honey notes of the tea, which seems sweeter. The strong woody notes of the tea are elevated to a lighter and greener tone.” That description exemplifies what makes tea pairing so special: when done right, it has the ability to elevate and enhance the flavors in both the food and the tea.

3) Earl Grey & Orange Beef and Chinese Broccoli

Bigelow recommends pairing its Earl Grey tea with red meat, duck, or dark chocolate, arguing that the tea’s citrus notes make them a perfect match with these meats and sweets. Bigelow’s recipe for Orange Beef and Chinese Broccoli meets that criteria, with an added bonus of more tea: it uses Bigelow’s Orange & Spice Herbal tea in the stir fry. Double the dose of tea? Sign us up.

4) Pu-erh & Mushrooms

Pu-erh, a fermented tea grown in China’s southwest Yunnan Province, goes well with mushrooms, tea sommelier Melani Franks told Fresh Cup Magazine. Pu-erh smells like soil, complementing the earthy tone of mushrooms. Try creating a pu-erh broth and adding mushrooms, or marinating mushrooms in a pu-erh-based concoction.

5) Black Tea & Camembert

Wine and cheese may seem like an unbreakable duo, but pairing tea and cheese works very well, too. Food & Wine recommends pairing black tea and camembert. Heidi Johannssen Stewart of Bellocq Tea Atelier recommends her company’s Gypsy Caravan tea—which blends black tea with rose and chile– to go along with Camembert. She told Food & Wine that this pairing “feels like you’re sitting around the fireplace.” Elaborates Food & Wine, the Gypsy Caravan black tea “features a gentle, smoky finish, which is excellent with Camembert earthy flavor.”

Don’t have the ingredients for these specific pairings?

Here’s a handy dandy chart from the Tea Association of Canada to get your noggin working on some other ideas. With so many varieties of tea on the market, each offering a unique flavor profile, we’re sure you’ll come up with some genius pairings on your own:

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