A Nice Cuppa

When I discovered a recipe underneath the box lid of my Chocolate Caramel Enchantment tea, I realized there was a treasure trove waiting to be found. A quick search for “cooking with tea” led me to several excellent sites. The Cat-Tea Corner website is a good set of guidelines for those just starting out. Celestial Seasonings, the maker of Chocolate Caramel Enchantment, has a lovely collection of recipes for appetizers, entrees, desserts, and “festive beverages.” They even have a contest for new recipes. Numi Tea has a nice bunch of creations, including a recipe for breakfast tea biscotti, which I modified below.

There was some paradoxical instruction among these sites. Celestial Seasonings’ recipes use concentrated tea in some of their recipes; the Chai Tea Sponge Cake (which is delightful made with any chai tea) calls for 1/4 cup of tea made with six bags in 3/4 cup of hot water, brewed overnight. The Cat-Tea corner cautions against overbrewing tea, which can lead to bitterness. The key is to keep your teas straight:

• Green tea becomes bitter quickly. Do not overbrew.
• Black teas take longer to become bitter, but when they are in spicy mixes (like many varieties of chai), the bitterness doesn’t matter. Do not overbrew English or Irish breakfast teas. Earl Grey will taste different, but it won’t be as caustic to your tastebuds as the English breakfast will. Darjeeling will take even longer to go bitter because it is rather delicate in flavor to begin with (it is, after all, the champagne of teas, according to Twinings).
• Herbal teas such as those made with peppermint, rose hips, vanilla, or other spices, that contain no actual tea leaves may be brewed for as long as you like. They are infusions, not teas.
• If you add enough sugar to anything, it tastes good.

Breakfast Blend Biscotti

This biscotti is so delicious that I am trying to figure out why I’ve not yet seen them in a cute coffee shop. Numi’s directions called for putting the tea directly into the biscotti, which made me a little queasy. Nobody likes a ruptured tea bag in her mug, much less her breakfast. But I decided to try it out. I also made a batch and skipped the “tear open the tea bags” step. The biscotti with flakes of tea leaves were ignored by the faint of heart but altogether delicious. The ones made with plain tea tasted just as nice. Take your pick:

Preparation Time: 75 minutes

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine flour, baking soda and salt, and stir. In another bowl, beat sugar and butter, until creamy. Beat in eggs. Bring water to a boil. Tear open the tea bags, pour into the water, and stir. Steep for 5 minutes, then immediately stir into sugar mixture. Gradually fold in flour mixture and nuts. Lightly grease baking sheet. Shape dough into 2-inch wide logs on the baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Slide logs onto cutting board and cut diagonally into 1 -inch thick slices. Return to baking sheet, cut side down. Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning biscotti over halfway through. Cool before serving. Makes 17 pieces.