Tea may be a lot of things — healthy, soothing, steeped in tradition — but it's always lacked the sex appeal of coffee — the edgy danger of a cup taken black, those beatnik coffeehouse roots. Tea feels like the grown-up older sister of the pair — it's the proper drink that puts health and comfort ahead of excitement. But a visit to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada — home of the largest annual tea festival in North America — turns all those staid stereotypes on their head. Who knew this old brew had a wilder side?
Yes, British Columbia's capital city revels in the history of a proper cuppa, but it's also doing some thoroughly modern, exciting takes on tea — from tea-tinis and tea-infused beer to inventive cooking accents you can try in your own kitchen.
Read on for some unique tea inspirations and tips and recipes you can make at home.
Soup, Salad … and Tea?
Depending on the type of tea you use, steeping leaves into your home cooking can add a delicate complexity or wallop of flavor. Victoria chef Heidi Fink teaches a course on cooking with tea in which she instructs students how to incorporate a variety of blends into everyday dishes.
Even without a recipe it's easy to get creative — use a tea ball to steep the flavor of your favorite blend into soups and sauces. (Fink, who used to be the executive chef at a vegetarian restaurant, steeps a small amount of smoky lapsang souchong into pea soup and tomato vodka sauce — two dishes that normally get their smokiness from meat.) Or try Fink's recipes for Lapsang Maple Salad Dressing and Chai Honey Butter, a perfect topper for tea-time scones.
Tea Beer
What do you get when you mix two of the most refreshing ways to quench your thirst? Tea beer! These brews infuse traditional ales with a variety of leaves for a smooth summer drink that starts out with your usual malt and wheat and ends with light, refreshing tea note. At Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub, they make it on site, mixing their own pale ale with white tea. If you're not in Victoria, keep an eye out for other local Canadian brews. In Ontario, Mill Street makes a lovely lemon tea ale.
Cocktails
Want something a little harder? Victoria's endlessly inventive bar scene is brewing up all sorts of tea-infused cocktail magic, from the Mayahuel Flame, a tequila-based drink with green-tea bitters and grapefruit at Clive's Classic Lounge (a must-visit for cocktail lovers), to the Rialto at Veneto, which uses Victoria gin and lapsang souchong tea from Silk Road. The Empress 1908 (pictured), the signature cocktail of the Fairmont Empress's Bengal Lounge, is a tea-infused vodka drink that tastes like sweet, lemony iced-tea with a kick. It's served, adorably, with a mini scone on the side.
Dessert
Many consider tea to be the perfect after-dinner drink, but we strongly recommend eating it, too! Whether you use tea to poach fruit or add a teaspoon or two of finely ground matcha to your mix for a green tea cheese cake, it adds a new dimension to the last course of your meal. Heidi Fink's Japanese Sour Cherry-Green Tea Sorbet relies on a green tea blend, creating a cold treat that is both sweet and mouth-puckeringly sour — and insanely refreshing. You can also use the recipe to make popsicles or an icy Italian granita.
How to Steep the Perfect Cup
Just looking to brew a perfect cup of tea? Here are some tips gleaned from a tea tasting at Silk Road, Victoria's tea mecca:
- The right proportion: Using loose tea leaves? Use one teaspoon for a six-to-eight-ounce cup.
- Don't burn your tea: Overly hot water can actually burn tea leaves, making your brew taste bitter. While black teas brew best with water that's come to a full boil, white, green, and other varieties are better steeped in slightly cooler water.
- Watch the steep time: As it steeps, tea produces tannins, the same compounds that give red wines their puckerish taste. The longer you brew tea, the more tannins it produces, resulting in a bitter aftertaste. Many teas only need to be steeped for a couple of minutes, so if you find your brew tastes bitter, you may want to reduce the steeping time.
