Tea: It’s not just a beverage. You can cook or bake with it in meat, fish, pasta, soups, desserts, and salads, instead of just pairing it with foods. Steep tea in water or other liquids, add it dry in whole-leaf or ground form, smoke or brine it. Like wine, tea’s different flavors and styles complement foods in widely varying ways. A beloved food ingredient in tea-producing countries in Asia for centuries, it’s been discovered by mainstream chefs. Think outside the cup, and let your imagination run wild.
Cynthia Gold certainly did. The former tea sommelier at Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers and L’Espalier restaurant in Boston, now with In Pursuit of Tea, has cooked with tea for more than 20 years. She included more than 150 recipes in (Running Press, 2010), from
