TEA TIME

Pastry chefs are sourcing natural teas from around the globe for delicate flavor infusions

By Robert Wemischner

Beyond filling our mugs, tea in all its variety can be a less-thought-of but impactful ingredient for both savory and sweet dishes. On the savory side, tea can add a layered and nuanced flavor to many dishes, announcing its presence confidently in braises, stocks, soups, sauces, rubs and smoking tinder.

On the sweeter side, pastry chefs are finding ways to use different types of tea in fillings for chocolate bonbons, as well as in ice creams, mousses and sauces. While vanilla and floral-flavored teas — even those made with synthetic or the suspect “natural flavors” — have long been used in pastry kitchens, now is the time to consider premium whole-leaf teas and the delicate, nuanced flavors they impart.

Today, there’s greater access than ever to high quality tea leaves grown and hand-plucked from all over the world, including India, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and even parts of the United States. Just like wine, coffee, cheese and vanilla, tea is a terroir-driven ingredient. It has unique smoky, fruity, citrusy or floral flavors influenced by the place where it is grown. The climate, the soil, the altitude, the air, the very geography — and even the other plants growing around it — all affect tea’s final flavor in a cup or, in this case, a dessert.

Chef and Master Chocolatier Luis Amado, CEPC (left), an instructor at Lake Michigan College with campuses in Benton Harbor, Niles and South Haven, Michigan, takes inspiration from his travels teaching chocolate making around the world. For a ganache infusion, he uses Assam tea leaves from the northeast region of India with the same name. Tea from that region has a malty, mellow character, which Chef Amado says pairs nicely with the curry he uses in the bonbon-making process.

For one half of the two-part mold, he pairs 43% milk chocolate with teasteeped cream, making sure to avoid over-steeping, “which would make the ganache bitter or tannic,” he says. Chef Amado fills the other half of the mold with a homemade cherry pâté de fruit, although he says a fruit jelly or fig marmalade would also work well here. He then gently applies a little heat to each half-mold with a heat gun for a couple seconds before fusing the two parts together and freezing them until set.

During that time, he adds finely ground curry powder to just melted cocoa butter, allowing the mixture to sit at room temperature for about an hour before straining the mixture and pouring it into an airbrush sprayer. He then sprays the frozen bonbons with a light mist of the golden-hued blend, garnishing the bonbons with a line of tempered chocolate and some caramelized nuts.

“The cherry pâté de fruit filling enhances the floral notes of the tea, which are then contrasted with bitterness of the chocolate, he says.

Chef Ethan Howard , pastry chef at the Acacia House restaurant in the Alila Napa Valley Hotel in St. Helena, California, infuses an ice cream base with mellow-flavored, whole leaf black tea from parts of China and orange peel in a nod to the subtle bergamot flavors of Earl Grey tea as the final touch to a chocolate tart. “The classic combination of dark chocolate and orange and the tea’s floral notes all lead to a meld of flavors that cannot be beat,” he says.

Pastry Chef Nicolas Nayener uses delicate white, vibrant green and robust black tea for a classic Paris-Brest. He infuses the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar parts of the choux paste overnight with white tea leaves before boiling the mixture the next day, adding flour and eggs and baking the round puffs. He adds bright green Japanese matcha tea powder to flavor and color a mousseline filling. For the finish, Chef Nayener replaces some of the flour in the buttery dough layer, or craquelin, with finely ground black tea leaves for extra flavor and dramatic color.

“Aware that the three teas used here have very different flavor profiles, I have been able to combine them in a ‘jeu de textures et de saveurs,’ a play of textures and flavors that reinforce each other,” says Chef Nayener, who oversees research and development and customer education for Eurogerm, a French ingredient company with an outpost in the Chicago area. “This dessert delivers a complex tasting experience and lets the person enjoying it perceive the individual flavors of the teas in an overall harmonious way.”

Liberate tea from the cup, and your audience will be rewarded with new taste experiences. “I like to use teas in chocolates and desserts because I feel they are underutilized,” Chef Amado says. Pastry chefs are in a unique position to “take advantage of all the wonderful flavors that teas can offer, and they add a little romance and drama to a dessert menu.”

For pastry recipes using tea, visit WeAreChefs.com

Tips for Using Whole Tea Leaves

Chef Robert Wemischner offers tips for working with natural whole tea leaves from around the globe. He is the author of “Cooking with Tea: Techniques and Recipes for Appetizers, Entrees, Desserts, and More” and has spent years working as a pastry chef-instructor at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

Study the variety. Take note of the diversity of global teas, including nonoxidized white and aged pu-erh teas from China, matcha and other green teas from Japan, oolongs from Taiwan, black varieties from India, Southeast Asia, Africa and Columbia and more. Source whole leaf teas from specialty vendors, as well as some broadline distributors, depending on availability. Remember: Herbal teas such as mint and chamomile are not true tea because they are made from herbs, not from the leaves of camellia sinensis or camellia assamica plants.

Taste first. To properly taste tea before adding it to your ingredient repertoire, brew 1 teaspoon of tea leaves per 8 ounces of water (unless otherwise specified) and watch out for scalding temperatures or under- or over-steeping the leaves.

Take notes. Record your flavor impressions. Is the brew light, robust, flowery, delicate? There are probably many other descriptors of note that can help you discover ingredient pairings. Taste the teas you wish to use with the main ingredients of the dessert you are making before embarking on the actual production, noting what works and what doesn’t. A little goes a long way if properly infused into a dish.

Store tea properly. Use teas when they are fresh. If they have little to no aroma, the same can be said about their taste, and it’s best to discard them. Otherwise, store teas away from heat, light and any foods, spices or other ingredients with a strong aroma. Always buy whole tea leaves in small quantities to use them while they’re fresh.