The first time I heard about tea-flavored salt was through Instagram. I don’t remember if it was a tea blogger’s post or a tea festival post, but there were various kinds of it, ready to be added to our dishes. I immediately thought it was a great idea!
I tried different ones, the one I liked best being smoked Lapsang Souchong tea, a tea I really enjoy in cooking, and I used it in various dishes, from hummus to bread sticks, from leek noodles to creamed carrots. Then, one day, I looked for that package again to buy it for a gift and could no longer find it.
That’s when I thought of reproducing the recipe at home trying to balance the two simple ingredients, salt and tea. I did various trials until I came up with a result that was much appreciated by the recipients of my gift who in this way tested firsthand the versatility of tea and perhaps, today, see (I hope) this beverage in a different way. My goal is always to convey passion for this world and for everything behind it i.e., a lifestyle of slowness, lightness and sharing
The beautiful thing is, when I made more jars for my friends and they then wrote to me to tell me about their recipes and pairings. We’ll talk about that later anyway.
Homemade tea flavored salt
120 g fine salt
8 g organic Lapsang Souchong tea leaves
Preparation
Preparing Lapsang Souchong tea-flavored salt at home is super easy. First, it is important to have some sterilized glass jars on hand where we can store our fragrant preparation.
Next, let’s move on to the tea. I recommend breaking up the leaves with a meat tenderizer or herb chopper. I know, it can be a shame, but they can be annoying while eating. Then reduce them to the size of dried oregano, to wit.
In a bowl, mix the salt with the tea so that you get a smoother preparation. The ratio of these two ingredients can, of course, change according to your personal taste or the intensity of the smokiness of the Lapsang Souchong (no, they are not all the same!). For example, for smoking friends I used 9 – 10 g of tea to 120 g of salt. In general, however, the ratio I used is 1 part smoked tea to 15 parts salt. If, for example, you want to make a jar with 500 g of salt you have to mix it with about 30 g of tea (500 : 15 = 33.33). Sorry, I may have written some obvious things, but I am trying to put myself in the shoes of those who, like me, have never had much of a relationship in school with math.
Well, at this point, cover the bottom of the jar with grains of rice. I lived in a very humid place for years, and this trick is to absorb the moisture and make sure the salt doesn’t compact too much. Pour in your mixture with aromatic smoky notes (perhaps with the help of a funnel) and your Lapsang Souchong tea flavored salt is ready. Easy, right?
Can it be done with other types of tea? Sure, but this is the one that convinced me the most, perhaps because I was already using it in my cooking.
Pairings
How can you use this tea-flavored salt? I like to add it at the end of cooking to vegetable soups, especially those with sweet ingredients, such as pumpkin and carrot. Some time ago I had prepared sautéed peas, flavored with this salt, with which I then stuffed a savory pie, and in my opinion the recipe was great. To accentuate the result I had added Lapsang Souchong leaves to the filling.
Lapsang Souchong salt then goes well with chicken or pork, eggs (perhaps scrambled, served for a homemade brunch), salmon or chips. It replaces smoked bacon in so many preparations and adds flavor naturally. My father-in-law went so far as to put a pinch of it on tortellini in broth on Christmas Day, and it was actually good for us.
Let me know what you think of this tea-flavored salt and in what ways you use it in your cooking.