My mom was never a “Tiger Chinese Mom”, but she is very “tiger” with her tea! Unlike blended or perfumed tea with fruits or dry flowers that are popular in the west, most Chinese teas are unblended pure teas and are valued for their natural delicate fragrance and flavors. Hence it’s rather unusual for a Chinese to add anything at all into their teas when brewing, except for, of course my mom. She has a spirit of not following any “rules” when it comes to tea and I thought it’s time to share her top three Chinese tea blend recipes!
-half dry tangerine peel with 7g of Phoenix Dan Cong Honey Orchid Aroma
Chinese dry tangerine peels are known for its digestive medicinal property and it’s often used for culinary and medicinal purpose. While Dan Cong can be a bit astringent sometimes, the dry tangerine peel adds a bit more sweetness to it.
-2 spoonful of honey (and a piece of mint leaf) into 5g smoked Lapsang Souchong black tea
Lapsang Souchong is the very first black tea in the world and traditionally, this tea is perfumed with a smoked aroma through burning a very specific type of pinewood. This is actually what makes me cry out loud since most of the smoked Lapsang tea we find these days on the market are fake, so adding honey into the real smoked Lapsang just hurts my heart, but it surely blends perfectly well with that smokiness!
-Coconut juice/meat with 4g iced Dong Ding oolong tea
My personal favorite and is perfect for summer time! When making ice tea, the cool water to tea leaf ratio is 1:50 and the steeping time is around 1 hour. You can add coconut meat and steep with the tea together or add 1/3 of cup of coconut juice afterwards.
What do you think about these recipes? Do you do any personalized blend?