Tea paired with food can be a good alternative to the usual water, or even wine or other alcoholic beverages that cannot always be consumed by everyone during a lunch or dinner.
By now, we know that tea can be part of different parts of our day, in addition to breakfast and the classic snack.
In fact, it is less and less uncommon to find teas offered in combination with savory foods or real full meals. Moreover, in the Teatips Box, each tea is also told through its flavors and the ways in which it could be paired with foods.
How to pair tea and food
When pairing a food with a beverage, we must try to maintain a balance between the flavors. Therefore, we cannot choose a full-bodied red wine if we are eating white meat or fish.
This principle also applies with tea.
There are many kinds of tea, all different from each other because the ways in which they are processed and thus produced are different.
If we want to have brunch, at which we prepare bacon, eggs, French toast, and generally very savory, salty foods, the ideal choice shifts to black teas.
These, particularly black teas from India, Sri Lanka and Malawi can be suitable in combination with very strong flavors. In particular, some of them have citrus notes, such as an English Breakfast or a Small Farmers Second Flush from Darjeeling.
If, on the other hand, we want to opt for a vegetarian or vegan version of brunch, such as adopting tofu instead of meat or eggs, the above black teas may be too strong. Then it would be a good idea to choose a green tea, perhaps a Japanese Genmaicha, which adds an extra roasted note given by the rice grains. Even a lightly oxidized oolong such as a Yingxiang from Taiwan could match this more delicate, vegetal option.
The same goes for lunches and dinners. Ideally, try to identify the main characteristic of the food and find the tea that is able to not hide it. A mushroom risotto, for example, is great paired with a post-fermented tea, such as Pu’Er; just as a jasmine-scented green tea is ideal alongside pork or a serving of sushi.
Drinking tea during meals
Drinking tea while eating can also help us physically by supporting our digestion. In fact, in Japan, low-caffeine green teas such as Hojicha, Genmaicha and Kukicha are the perfect allies for not feeling immediately full after a tempura meal.
In general, tea provides us with good fluid intake and, thanks to the presence of caffeine, speeds up metabolism.
What to drink instead of wine
The fashion of recent times seems to be to drink tea by the goblet. Many tea rooms are adopting this type of service, especially considering the amount of hand sanitizer we use every day. The smell of these products could strongly alter our olfactory and taste perception of tea if we drank while holding our hands close to our noses. Instead, the goblet increases the distance, leading us to focus exclusively on the aroma of the tea.
In this way, tea can become a substitute for wine during meals, perhaps during an aperitif or dinner.
Tea bouquets can be steeped directly in the goblet, the shape of which allows the flower attached to the green tea leaves to open and release its flavor into the water.
First Flush from Darjeeling or Sikkim are perfect when enjoyed in the goblet: we can appreciate their nutmeg and nectarine notes, especially when hot. But even if they are prepared cold, they can be served this way, further lending freshness to the event we are holding.