Sunday, April 2, 2017

Look Online For Great Tea Recipes

By Ann Edwards


You can find great recipes online, ones that come from all over the world. Tea recipes range from American southern-style sweet tea to Indian chai. You will discover directions for the iced beverage served with almost every meal in Dixie and also find out how to make a delicate sauce for fish. There are all sorts of ways to use invigorating black teas or healthful, flavorful herbal ones.

Sweet tea, the classic drink of the deep south, has become a staple in both elegant and fast food restaurants. One technique for making this favorite advocates adding sugar to concentrated, hot tea and allowing the brew to steep. Later you dilute it to taste with cool water and then serve over ice. Some people make a sugar syrup and stir that into already-brewed tea. The taste is quite different from what you get by simply adding a spoonful of sugar right before you drink it.

There are variations to this old-time summer drink. Some of the best ones use mint (12 sprigs to a pitcher), lemon juice or orange juice, or all of the above. Alternate orange and lemon slices for garnish to make your table look inviting. You can also change things up by serving chai cold or making a warm, tea-based smoothie.

Some recipes are centuries old, like spiced tea from India (this is what chai is, specifically Masala Chai. Chai means tea, masala means spice). Most chais have cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, and clove. After that, you can make a regional favorite, because it differs all over the sub-continent, or create your own.

The divine tea mushroom, or kombucha, is cultured black or green tea. You can buy it in various flavors at the grocery store; it will be refrigerated and probably in the natural foods section. You can also make it at home. Fill a large jar with tea and sugar, add the culture (a mushroom or liquid starter), and ferment for a week or so. This renders a probiotic-rich, sweet, vinegary drink that has many health benefits and goes great with meals.

Teas are used to flavor muffins, scones, and doughnuts. You can use them in main dishes or in frozen desserts. One good trick is to use an herbal variety, like apple cinnamon, instead of water when making oatmeal. You'll find tips for making jelly or for exotic things like infused eggs, a popular item in Chinese cities where they are sold by street vendors.

Tea is technically from the camellia plant and originated in China. Today India is the largest producer, but it still has to import much of what it uses. Almost every region now has an industry, even the United States and England. The herbal 'infusions' of leaves or stems of flavorful or medicinal plants are not technically tea but this term has become almost universal for a hot brew that's not coffee.

Sun tea is fun to make. All you need is a large jar of water, four or five bags of your favorite tea, and a sunny day. By nighttime the power of the sun will have done the brewing.




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