I’m not sure why this is called ‘tea egg’, I’d love to call it ‘tea flavored egg’.
This is one of the traditional snack in China. It reminds me of my college life everytime I see it. It was very popular being the before-bedtime-snack back then, I think there was more than 20 tea egg booth around the campus at that time.
Ingredients:
eggs, black tea, seasoning.
Method:
1.Lay eggs in pot, covered with cold water, add some salt into water, bring to boil on medium high heat. Then turn heat off, let eggs sit in pot to keep cooking.
salty water can prevent cracked eggs to spill out when cooking.
2.Meantime, add cold water into another pot, and add seasoning to it, bring to boil on high heat.
For seasoning, I used black tea, cinnamon stick, star anise, zanthoxylum, soybean sauce, salt and sugar. You can add more seasoning as your taste, such as orange peel, bay leaves, etc.
I put the dry seasoning into a tea bag, so they won’t get loose in pot. And I don’t like the strong taste of them, so I took the bag out of pot 10 minutes after I turn off the heat.
3.Crack egg shells with back of a spoon without taking them out. Or you can take them out of water, do it the way you like.
4.Transfer all the cracked eggs into the seasoning pot. Bring to boil again on high heat, then turn heat off. Let eggs sit in pot until it cool off.
Some people like to stick holes on eggs so the flavor can get to the inside of eggs.
5. Take eggs out of pot, peel. Then eggs are ready to serve.
You can serve them hot or cold. They taste good either way.
Picture below shows a darker color egg and a lighter color egg. The lighter color egg was taken out right after turning off the heat, the darker color egg was taken out after soaking in pot for several hours. Of course the darker color egg has a stronger flavor.
