tea and food matching

I guess I tend to do obvious tea and food pairings. Homemade pancakes with fresh maple syrup and earl grey for me. Oh yeah! Chai after a nice Indian meal. Mmmmm. Puerh immediately after a huge meal. Also, I tend to do oolongs with dessert for some reason. Not really a food pairing but I’ve used my strawberry oolong to make a strawberry teatini. Yums.

I had hot cinnamon from Harney and Sons with some yummy california rolls and sweet potato rolls the other night. Have also had green teas with salads, I save the sweeter/blended teas for dessert.

I recently had Emperor’s Clouds and Mist from Teavana with a fuyu persimmon. It was a wonderful pairing. It brought out the sweetness in the tea.

Thanks for the interesting ideas! From my research there seems to be a school of thoughts in pairing in the way of complementing (a tea enhances a taste), while others seem to prefer a more refreshing approaching (a tea reduces a taste, usually strong taste or greasinsess (ok that’s not a taste).
Choc mud pie with pu-erh, and rose oolong after a scone with strawberry jam?

Should a food rival the taste of a tea or be unobtrusive so as not to distort the taste? I usually drink my tea without food, but I have thought to try some plain sugar cookies or something non-spicy. Also I’m thinking cheese and crackers, but would something like a blue cheese coat the mouth and distort the taste of the tea? I have vague thoughts of doing some kind of tea tasting in the future, so these thoughts are relevant.

I suppose you can say tea is like a canvas. As soon as you draw on it (adding food while taking tea), then the whole game changes. Some like the purity, others like the multi-colour-interesting composition. I guess it also depends on whether the tea is already "tainted’ such as flavoured teas like chocolate black tea. If it is, go and fetch a slice of something to go with it doesn’t seem half bad.
Another thought just came to head – lately there is been a discussed in linkedin about “tea drunk”. When I was in Hong Kong, that’s what tea teachers talk about in the sense that if you continue to drink lots of tea in one sitting, you may feel queasy etc which is referred as tea drunk. The linkedin discussion has gone to different directions as some seem to compare it to euphoria of sorts…

Hey there! We have a section on our blog all about tea pairings if you’d like to check it out. Happy pairing! http://www.shopsanctuaryt.com/blog/category/pairings/