A Nice Cuppa

Fuze Teas, rumbling to a city near you

Genevelyn Steele — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 21:35:46 +0000

Bikinis and low-riders and tea? Oh my! Marketing iced tea to the hot and thirsty has come a long way since the Lipton plunge. Remember the image of a fully clothed middle-aged man falling into a pool with an iced Lipton tea? That commercial is tame compared to Fuze’s summer advertising. Fuze and LowRider Magazine are bringing iced tea and hot cars (and women) to festival goers across the U.S. The next event is July 30th in Houston, Texas. For the full calendar of places you can see funky lowriders while sampling a chilled Fuze tea, see the LowRider Magazine tour list.

But, having a great ad campaign doesn???t guarantee a superior product. So, I taste tested two Fuze white teas to see if they would help land one of those bikini girls. The verdict: I???ve got a love-hate relationship with Fuze Healthy Infuzions White Tea.

Show me the love:
Fuze Healthy Infusion White Tea with Orange Blossom
This is a white tea with a healthy bite to it. The 18 oz bottle has a huge dose of the antioxidants, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E and the vitamin B complex (B3, B5, B6, and B12) but only 120 calories. The tea is subtly sweetened with the essence of orange blossoms glowing through discernable white tea tannins. It???s price– good n??? cheap. Finding a chilled white tea in the to-go section of your grocery at this price point is not easy. I will buy this tea again.

Don???t Hate the Hater
Fuze Healty Infuzions Diet Pomegranate White Tea
This white tea is also inexpensive and full of vitamins. While my friend preferred this tea over the white tea with orange blossoms, I found it cloying and without pomegranate flavor. Not only does this tea taste artificial, it has a chalky aftertaste and smells of cat spray. I will not buy this tea again.

Mango Lychee Bubble Tea

Genevelyn Steele — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:57:43 +0000

I???m my daddy???s girl. Like pop, I roam the grocery aisles. While Dad gets his thrills price checking at Wal-Mart (his skill would stun Bob Barker), I prefer looking for funky-packaged fruit purees (my skill is drink-making) at Asian markets.

The flavor of the day is Mango. The drink is Mango-Lychee Bubble Tea. All of the ingredients wait at your Asian market.

Mango-Lychee Bubble Tea, or Boba

You will need:
1 c. large tapioca pearls specifically for Boba
?? c. prepared mango puree
?? c. lychee, canned or fresh, pureed until smooth
?? c. chilled black tea
?? c. sweetened soy milk
3 tbsp. lychee simple syrup (see earlier post)
Ice and a martini shaker
Large boba straws for slurping tapioca

1. Prepare the tapioca according to package directions. Cool the tapioca pearls in the refrigerator while you assemble the boba tea.
2. Puree the lychee. I usually buy canned lychee and use the canning liquor to make simple syrup and puree the fruit for boba tea.
3. Fill a martini shaker with ice and add the chilled black tea, soy milk, mango puree, lychee and simple syrup. Shake well and strain into a 16oz glass.
4. Ladle the cooked, chilled tapioca into the glass. Insert straw and enjoy.

Making Your Own Simple Syrup

Genevelyn Steele — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:42:35 +0000

White sugar doesn???t contain calcium, phosphorous, iron or potassium. These nutrients are removed from table sugar during bleaching, a process that gives sugar the texture and color of dry snow. White sugar is monochromatic in flavor. It provides one sensation: Sweet. I use processed sugar when baking because its sweetness integrates with other ingredients. But, for making simple syrup, I look for a sweetener of a different color to provide rich layers of sugared flavor. For homemade simple syrup, my elixirs are demerara-sugar based.

Demerara sugar, an import from South America, is a must for creating flavorful simple syrups. Simple syrup is my summertime staple for sweetening bubble tea, iced coffee and teas. When it???s hot and sticky outside, I keep a bottle of lychee simple syrup in the refrigerator door. Not only is it the perfect sweetener for chilled bubble teas and iced beverages, lychee simple syrup is sublime in martinis and mint juleps.

Lychee simple syrup
You will need:

1 large can of lychee (Available at Asian groceries)
1 to 2 cups of demerara sugar (Available at Whole Foods or other specialty markets)

1. Drain the syrup from the can of lychee into a measuring cup. (One can of lychee yields between 1 ?? to 2 c. of syrup.) Reserve the lychee fruit for later. *

2. Pour the syrup into a medium sauce pan and add one cup of demerara sugar for each cup of syrup.

3. Stirring constantly, simmer over medium-low heat until all the demerara sugar dissolves into the syrup. The lychee syrup should become more viscous and turn a lovely shade of taupe when done.

4. Allow the mixture to cool and pour into a glass or plastic container that you can keep in the door of your refrigerator.

??? There are a zillion uses for lychee; including pureeing the fruit for flavoring bubble teas and macerating the fruit in vodka to add to martinis.

The Basics of Bubble Tea

Genevelyn Steele — Sat, 27 May 2006 23:50:29 +0000

It???s late. I can???t sleep???perhaps a snack will help. I???m thinking of going to the kitchen and nibbling on leftover mac n??? cheese and maybe sampling the new flavor of Ben & Jerry???s stashed in the freezer–there is always a new flavor of Ben & Jerry???s. But I don???t. Instead I eat nothing and tell myself the story of a cold tea drink available at the night markets in Taiwan. Read on: food stories are pleasurable, but not caloric.

The night markets in Taiwan are meeting places for hungry, social insomniacs and partyers. The markets are chockablock with stalls where one can buy exotic snakes or knock-off Versace, while ordering porn and food at 2 am. These markets are the 1-900-GOT-SNACK of after-dark Asia. There are many night markets in Taiwan, and they all specialize in buzz food; the kind of food most palatable in a dream, or otherwise-altered, state. At the night markets you can find a range of food and drink, including; dumplings, noodles, blood pudding on a stick, stinky tofu, and bubble tea. The most famous night market in Taiwan is the Shilin night market, where it is said that a certain cold drink that also doubles as a midnight snack was created: Boba, a.k.a, bubble tea. Bubble tea, unlike the night market???s bloodsickles, is readily available as a snack in larger US cities with strong Asian populations. In New York and San Francisco, noshing on cool bubble tea is as common as stopping at Starbucks for an iced latte.

Bubble tea has an unproven origin, but lore attributes it to the Shilin night market where it was first sold in the 1980s as a chilled evening elixir for cruisers, as well as during the day to school children on their way home from class. Bubble tea, otherwise known as Boba or Black Pearl Milk Tea, consists of a base of tea or coffee, with milk or creamer added, and then finished with black tapioca pearls(boba) the size of large peas in the bottom of the drink. All the ingredients are shaken with shaved ice, like a martini, and then served straight up in a 16oz cup complete with jumbo straw for slurping the boba(tapioca pearls) from the bottom. The chewy tapioca adds umami, not flavor, to the drink. The flavors in bubble tea come from an immense menu of add-ins; there are more add-ins for bubble tea than flavors of Ben & Jerry???s. Some of the more popular flavors are honeydew, lychee and coconut. While most boba is sweet, all the taste sensations are possible in this drink. There are spicy boba teas such as ginger; salty ones, like sour plum; as well as savory milk teas, that contain the flavors of barley or sesame. But the two sensations that are always present in this caffeinated snack are sweet and umami. These tastes come from the tooth-jarringly sugared syrup and tapioca pearls found in every glass of black pearl milk tea.

I???ve experimented with making bubble tea at home for two reasons: mostly, there isn???t a boba stall on my way from point A to point B, and secondly, I find most prepared-by-someone-else boba too sweet. I make my own sugar syrup and mix-ins to avoid buying these things from boba supply stores because they are costly (and again, often too sweet for my taste). The one ingredient I do mail order is the black tapioca pearls. I have tried using the grocery store-variety white tapioca pearls in my homemade bubble teas, but the results were poor.

Stay tuned for directions and recipes for making your own bubble tea at home.