Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs

I fell in love the moment I saw the beautiful eggs. It is such a work of art and very simple to make.

I made this some time ago and my family and myself were fascinated by the prints on the egg.

From the recipes that are available online, many call for the addition of soy sauce to the recipe for 'salting' the eggs. For my recipe I added what I had at that time and didn't add star anise or soy sauce. My main goal was to recreate and the marbling. It also gave me the option to season the eggs as I like after they were cooked.

Here are two recommended links for recipe with soy sauce and more of a 'traditional' Chinese preparation. Source 1, Source 2.

Ingredients:
Eggs (8)
Tea (I used the regular loose black tea. Tea bags can also be used) (3-4 heaping tbsp)
Whole Cinnamon sticks (4ish)
Few cloves (4ish)
Water
Orange peels (just a few 3-4 small pieces)

Method:
First pre-boil the eggs in water for about 5-10 minutes (time after the water starts boiling). Then crack the shells as shown below. It helped me to use a heavy serving spoon to induce the cracks on the egg shells better than cracking them against the table or wall.

Then put the eggs back into the pot and added the water, tea, orange peels, cinnamon and cloves. The amount of water should be level with the eggs an/or a little higher. One way of having a deeper and darker color is by adding more tea leaves.

Boil the eggs for 2-3 hours in medium heat and this is what it looks like:

Leave the eggs overnight for an even deeper color. When I did this, even the shells were dyed.

And viola!

Words can't describe how pretty they look.

The residual shells look really cool too. 

Here is the cross section. Deviled eggs any one?

Tea time - Genmaicha

So I had the pleasure of getting a sample of Genmaicha from an asian store. This tea is very good for the summer. It is not a pure tea in the sense that its contents include more than just grean tea leaves. The additional content is roasted rice. [source 1]

When I looked into it (btw...im a pretend tea aficionado ;) ) it seems to have two really cool stories of origin.

One being that looooong time ago it was the tea consumed the common man. The reason being that adding roasted rice to the tea would increase the overall 'volume' of the tea and hence make it less expensive to have over a period of time. This is the most frequent story i have come across. [source 1, source 2 ]. That was the story then, but now according to sources, it is coming into trend among Japanese elite. [source 1].

Before I mention about the other story look at the packaging I got. It was almost too pretty to open :)

For the second story of its origin (most interesting...btw) is based on a legend from the 15th century. At that time a servant named Genmai was serving tea to his master. As Genmai was serving the tea, a few rice kernels from his pocket fell into the tea. At that time tea was expensive and a commodity, so naturally as the rice fell into the tea, the master got angry. Since those times people didn't have human rights, poor Genmai was beheaded for his 'crime'. 

Afterwards, the master tasted the 'tainted' tea, and found it delicious! Not to bad for the anger he felt! For this reason this formulation of tea came to be known as Genmaicha (the 'cha' in Genmaicha means tea). [source 3] 

Daifuku Chronicles II

Happy New Year!!!

Here is another set of goodies i tried recently. The melon flavor was quite refreshing with some green tea. This has more mochi than the bigger daifukus.

This year I will like to integrate my love for movies and drama shows with this blog. I will include a some of my favorite food movies and dramas that are really cool.  I am really excited for this new year and for new adventures that will come by!!! Yay!

Teaventures - Hoji!

After try many types of tea, this tea (Hoji cha) just blew me away (or rather my taste buds :) ). Its nothing like I've ever tasted or expected.

One can just taste the careful toasting application to the tea. Its just spectacular. For people who drink black tea and not so much fond of green tea, this tea would be a great addition to their tea repertoire. It has such a beautiful brown hue. Absolutely fabulous!