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Tea Recipes

Recipe for a quick and easy gift

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using matcha and/or hojicha powder

Matcha/Hojicha Chocolate Covered Caramelized Almonds

image and recipe courtesy of Sugimoto Tea Company

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup (100g) whole almonds (raw or roasted) or nuts or seeds of choice*
  • 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons (10g) water
  • 1 teaspoon (5g) butter
  • 2 oz white chocolate
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons (8g) matcha or hojicha powder

Instructions

Step 1: If using raw almonds, roast them at 325°F for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. [If using hulled green pumpkin seeds, definitely want to toast them – only about 5-6 minutes needed. Stir halfway through.]

Step 2: Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir, or Shake the pan every once in a while to dissolve the sugar evenly.

Step 3: Once the sugar melts completely, add almonds and stir continuously. The sugar will start crystalizing and look grainy and white. Keep stirring and the sugar will melt again and turn brownish in color.

Step 4: Remove from heat when the color turns deep amber. Don’t burn the sugar too much! Add butter and stir well. (I forgot to add the butter when making the pumpkin seed batch and they seem fine – pumpkin seeds maybe a bit more fat content than almonds ?)

Step 5: Spread out the almonds on a piece of parchment paper and separate them from one another. Allow to cool.

Step 6: In a small bowl, break the white chocolate into small pieces and melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Add 1/2tsp matcha (or hojicha) powder and stir gently until well combined.

Step 7: Once the almonds cool, put them in a medium bowl then pour about ¼ of the white chocolate over the almonds. Stir carefully until the almonds are covered with the chocolate. Repeat until all the chocolate is gone.

Step 8: Once the chocolate is solid, toss the almonds in the 1 tsp of matcha (or hojicha) powder to coat. [My Note: it took a good half hour in a cool kitchen for the chocolate to solidify enough to coat with the powder so they would look “dusted” rather than it being absorbed into the chocolate.]

*I think hulled pumpkin seeds would be a great substitute, especially with hojicha. Also I have somewhat edited the recipe for clarity based on my experience making my first batch. Comments are turned on so you can share from your experience as well.

My humble first attempt making hojicha almonds – Taste amazing – though not so pretty.

 Pro tip: After coating fully if there is a dusting of matcha or hojicha powder left in your bowl – make yourself a mini drink using standard preparation instructions (reducing water or milk proportionate to the amount of powder you have). Mmmm! OR, if you are gifting these, add it to the jar with the nuts and let your giftee get the extra benefit.

Hojicha pumpkin seed clusters before dusting with hojicha powder
My matcha almonds. Taste much better than they look!
General

New Year – 2022

Why we did not have a year-end sale for 2021….

I am sorry – I know many of you look forward to this sale each year. I hope to offer one this month to make up for it (January being “Hot Tea Month”).

My sister, Nanka Castulik-Byrne, died the week before Christmas. She passed on quickly with little pain and no long-term care or hospitalization. She died at home, with her husband (Bob) by her side.

We have always been rather pragmatic about death – and yet, there is a natural expression of grief – arising as a need for silence or pulling away from extra activity – the stillness of Winter. Between meeting the barest needs of the shop and my day job I had nothing left in me to attend to the behind the scenes pieces to implement and promote a sale. It seemed healthier and more important to me to respect the urges of my body/mind rather than the outward responsibility and routines of the business. There must be some benefit to being a business owner after all, to be able to make this call.

It is largely thanks to Nanka and her husband that Traveling Tea even exists. She gave me encouragement and support (emotional and financial) in the “getting started” hurdle – and then more, when I expanded into our storefront in Maplewood. She was a staunch supporter of buying local and regular attendee of the Tower Grove Farmers Market. She was also very passionate about women’s rights and safety – working for and with Safe Connections for many many years.

Nanka donated her body to SLU for the benefit of scientific research and, per her wishes, there will be no memorial service. Raise a cup of tea with your warm wishes for her memory and her family. She and Bob had a favorite “morning tea” of Earl Grey White Tip with milk and sugar. As a tribute from me, for her love and support, I will be donating a portion of proceeds for all Earl Grey White Tip sales from December 2021 through December 2022 to Safe Connections. If you would also like to make your own memorial gift, visit https://safeconnections.org/give/donate-now/

General

Too much black tea?

If you are like me, black tea is your primary Go-To beverage. Even so, sometimes my stomach says “too much” – needing something less acidic, more alkaline.

All tea has various health benefits, that vary due to harvesting and processing – it is a plant, after all. Green tea, being dried more quickly after harvest, has been most researched and found to have many more benefits. I can feel the difference in my stomach and in my body when I drink more (properly brewed) green tea.

It can be a challenge to drink more when the palate is more used to black. Black tea is more widely consumed in this country. The trick for me, is to blend them.

For a 16oz mug of tea, use 1 teaspoon black of choice, and 1 teaspoon of green (or adjust the ratio to suit your taste). Try starting with a Darjeeling or Assam green, or our Decaf Green (lower your caffeine intake at the same time). Use the same boiling water as for black (not a rolling boil though) and steep it for no more than 3 minutes, maybe even a little less. If using any of our teas, you will definitely be able to get a 2nd steep out of your cup (maybe even a third).

Darjeeling Green, Yanki Farms

It will still have enough of the black tea flavor to satisfy your palate, but will have less acidity. You may even be able to gradually shift it so that you are drinking more green in your cup than black. Note: If you do not like bitter tea, you usually cannot leave green tea to steep more than 3 or 4 minutes (even on 2nd or 3rd steeps). There are some green teas that are more forgiving. You will have to experiment to find them. [Our Baozhong Green, that is processed as an Oolong, and our new Mao Jian are both forgiving of forgetfulness]

Baozhong Green