Tea Recipes & Ideas

A mistake had been made. My mother absentmindedly asked for an iced tea at the roadside barbeque joint in rural North Florida. To her chagrin, before she could chase down the waitress and clarify unsweetened tea, a beverage appeared with a glycemic index somewhere between that of a Coca Cola and straight simple syrup. At 8 years old, I was more than happy to drink the sweetened beverage, the sucrose completely masking any bitterness in the tea that my immature pallet would have rejected.

Tea and geekiness go hand in hand. The world is full of shabby, much-loved copies of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones with tea rings on their covers. And more than one cosplay costume at Comic Con was sewn under the influence of multiple pots of very strong late-night green tea. That’s why people are loving Tea & Absinthe, the independent tea maker that specializes in custom tea blends for the nerdiest fandoms.

If you’ve been keeping track of this year’s food trends, then you have to be exhausted. It seems like seven centuries have passed since we crammed into Starbucks for our first Unicorn Frappuccinos, and we seemed impossibly young when we Instagrammed our hand triumphantly holding a charcoal ice cream cone. But as we limp toward the final weeks of the year, carrying a bleeding veggie burger and a plate of cloud eggs, I guess we should get in line for a to-go cup of cheese tea too.

I’ve always wanted to be that person who has a morning or nighttime ritual — who sits with the newspaper every morning when sipping their coffee or meditates for 10 minutes before bed. Sadly, rituals are usually lost on me. I get bored or just forget to partake. That’s slowly starting to change, however, as I’ve begun to practice a little more self-care.

I know I have a tendency to anthropomorphize objects, but I’ve said “My Instant Pot is my best friend” so often I think it might have become true. I do talk to it a lot, saying things like, “Are you done yet? Which button am I supposed to push now? How do I get you to say ‘I love you’?” Now I worry that my yogurt cake- and wine-making BFF is feeling neglected.

I am an absolute sucker for things that look like other things. Cats in lion costumes? Laminate countertops painted to look like marble? The fact that Queer Eye‘s Antoni Porowski looks just like John Mayer? I am here for it. That’s why I was utterly delighted by these fancy water bottles that aren’t full of water at all — they’re full of milk tea that just happens to look just like water.

Britain is known for being a nation of tea-lovers, but nobody in the U.K. loves tea as much as Yorkshireman Nathan Garner. In fact, nobody has ever loved any food as much as he loves tea. I’m serious! This dude loves his tea more than Proust loved Madelines and Monty Python loved Spam, and he just proved it by legally changing his middle name to “Yorkshire Tea.” Nathan Derek Garner is no more. Long live Nathan Yorkshire Tea Garner.

Growing up in 1970s and 1980s Moscow, my day began and ended with tea. Always in a cup with a saucer, in the mornings it accompanied a breakfast of eggs or a cheese sandwich and in the evenings a dushevni (or soulful) conversation with my mother. We made the tea by mixing boiling hot water with the concentrated tea brew, or zavarka, directly in the cups. The staple of every Soviet household, zavarka was kept in a ceramic teapot and lasted at least a day.

I began my tea-drinking habit early. At age 10, it was a handy excuse to linger at the dinner table and listen in on adult conversations. I drank Red Rose tea with milk and as much sugar as I could manage to toss in without my mom noticing. As I’ve gotten older, tea has continued to be a reason to idle; I’ve visited more than 70 countries, and I’m sure I’ve had a cup of tea in every one.

Tea. It’s a drink with jam and bread, a beverage sipped by characters in Jane Austen novels, and required drinking on (or while watching) Downton Abbey. And tea’s role in Western pop culture doesn’t stop there: Down the rabbit hole and back up again to strange new worlds and beyond, here are some of our favorite tea cameos. Ever the proper Brit, Mary Poppins knows teatime waits for no one — even flying nannies.

We spend a lot of time planning and cooking the Thanksgiving meal, but what happens when the feast is over? The late afternoon hours at the table are my favorite part, after the rush of the meal, lingering over a last bite of pie and talking with relatives I rarely get to see. But if you just can’t handle one more pecan bar and another glass of wine is a bad idea, cup your hands around a hot cup of tea instead — and make enough for everyone as they sit back and digest.

You’ve tried green and black (and perhaps white and jasmine too), now how about oolong tea? With the fragrance of green tea and the smoothness of black tea, oolong tea is full-bodied, sweet, and reminiscent of stone fruits like apricots. Although it is traditionally served hot, I think oolong also makes particularly good iced tea. Like all true teas, oolong tea is produced from the leaves of a shrub called Camellia sinensis.

If you’ve ever sipped tea in an American Chinese restaurant, there’s a good chance it was jasmine tea. Jasmine is one of several Chinese scented or flower teas, and the most renowned. Aromatic and slightly sweet, it is delicious with meals, on its own, and incorporated into desserts.

Who: Jesse Jacobs Where: Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, CA The Question: What kind of tea should I drink with my favorite foods? Jesse Jacobs is a passionate, wholehearted tea-lover and the owner of Samovar Tea Lounge, a small chain of four tea cafes located in San Francisco. Samovar is noted for its top of the line tea offerings as well as its innovative pairings of tea and food.

Beyond the label of black versus green tea, each of these categories includes a rich array of aromas and flavors. Today we’re taking a closer look at black tea in its various forms, from smoky and chocolatey to bright and citrusy. Wondering when to add milk, or which variety is better for iced tea? Step right in… Black tea comes from a shrub called Camellia sinensis.

The shopping, the baking, the decorating, the caroling, the traveling — the holidays are never stressful, right? It’s just joy and peace and jolly and festive! Well, just in case the stress does happen to creep in, here’s an idea: make a cup of spiced tea, snag some quiet space in the kitchen and nosh on one of those gorgeous cookies sure to be within reach.

Where I live, fall is not in the air. The late summer heat is relentless and there will be no hot apple ciders or spiced cakes in my near future, which is why I love this idea from the blog Will Cook For Friends: chai-spiced tea cubes served in a glass of icy-cold milk. It’s a way to enjoy the warm spices of autumn in a cool, refreshing treat! The ice cubes are made of strong black tea steeped with whole spices and ginger.

In 1946 English novelist and journalist George Orwell published an essay in the Evening Standard entitled “A Nice Cup of Tea.” For everyone who’s ever believed there’s an art to making a good cup of tea, you’ll definitely enjoy Mr. Orwell’s 11 “golden” rules for the perfect cup. Read the full essay below:Originally published January 12, 1946 in the Evening Standard.

Recently Serious Eats featured “pestle tea,” a Hakka Chinese drink made from tea leaves pounded with nuts and seeds. Intrigued by the sound of this creamy, nourishing tea, we explored further and realized this is the lei cha that we’ve found in packets at Asian markets — but so much better when made from scratch.Lei cha, also known as pounded, ground, or thunder tea, is a specialty of the Hakka people of southern China.

Here’s a fun, simple, very rewarding DIY project to help lift the January doldrums: make your own Earl Grey (or Lady Grey) tea! I can personally attest that this tea will win over even those of you who, like me, usually don’t care for Earl Grey. The process itself is easy but it does offer one challenge: sourcing fresh bergamot fruit. Read on for my very simple homemade Earl Grey tea recipe.I must confess up front that I don’t care for Earl Grey tea.

Do you have leftover apple peels from making sauce, pie, and other seasonal apple dishesThis is technically a tisane rather than a tea, although you could add apple peels to a cup of black or green tea. What we do is forgo the tea leaves and simply simmer a handful of organic apple peels in a saucepan of water for 5-10 minutes.Your kitchen will smell amazing, and the drink has the delicate flavor of apples and any other whole spices you add, such as a cinnamon stick, cardamom, or cloves.

You may choose to drink tea with a little bit of milk to make it taste better, but are you diminishing tea’s health benefits in the process? It turns out that, yes, that may be the case. Researchers at the Fifth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health say that milk proteins bind with the flavonols in tea, making it more difficult for the body to absorb them and reap the health benefits.