Culinary Tea: More Than 100 Recipes Steeped in Tradition from Around the World Book

This cutting-edge tome on one of the world’s oldest ingredients and most popular beverages will be an invaluable tool for both home and professional cooks. Gold and Stern offer new ways of looking at tea: the leaves with a history stretching thousands of years is now a secret weapon in the culinary arsenal.

Tea in its many forms has been around for thousands of years, and is a burgeoning industry in many countries as the demand for specialty leaves grows. Read all about the picking and drying techniques virtually unchanged for centuries, popular growing regions in the world, and the storied past of trading.

Culinary Tea has all this, plus more than 100 recipes using everything from garden-variety black teas to exclusive fresh tea leaves and an in-depth treatment of tea cocktails. The book will include classics, such as the centuries-old Chinese Tea-Smoked Duck and Thousand-Year Old Eggs, as well as recipes the authors have developed and collected, such as Smoked Tea-Brined Capon and Assam Shortbread.

Publishers Weekly

Veteran tea experts Gold and Stern share over 150 unusual recipes certain to delight creative cooks, from novice to connoisseur. The medical benefits of tea-drinking are legion, yet, while "Health can pique an interest," the authors know that "taste can create a devotee." What better way for a devotee to express their ardor for the leaf than to cook with it? Equally at home on coffee table or countertop, this handsome book begins with a thorough history and "flavor profile" of every tea type, visiting estates in Japan, India, Sri Lanka, and points between. Readers are then immersed in methodology (brewing the perfect cup; best storage techniques; best teapot types for the desired outcome) before the recipes begin. Broken into sections, stand-out offerings include Seared Tuna with Tea Spice Crust, Spinach and Ricotta Scallop Rotollo with Ceylon Beurre Blanc, and other promising entrées, but it's the desserts, such as Earl Grey Cream Tea Cake and Flourless Keemun-Cherry Chocolate Torte, that are truly divine. Rounding out the book's usability factor is a glossary, detailed index, and source guide complete with international tea vendors willing to overnight fresh leaves to the reader's front door. Illus. (Sept.)