The art of tea cocktails: a new tradition; It's all over the news: tea can make your heart healthier, lower your cholesterol, prevent cancer and make you thinner. It's a beverage that is quickly becoming associated with good, clean living—and the most virtuous cocktails

Art Culinaire,  Winter, 2007  

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"I look at tea cocktails as life in balance," says Cynthia Gold, tea sommelier of Swan's Cafe at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. "You have the alcohol to relax you, the caffeine to energize you, and a healthy dose of antioxidants to round it out--I even kid about that with some of our guests," she laughs.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But it's only partly in jest. "Like much in the tea world," she goes on to explain, "I think a lot of people are trying it out because of what they're hearing about the health benefits. Then it's up to the quality of the product to keep them there."

One approach to a tea cocktail is to simply add alcohol and other ingredients to brewed tea. It's a time-honored practice dating back to 19th century America, when iced tea would be combined with fruit juices and spirits to create festive bowls of punch. More recent cocktails of the same type include the Royal Tea and the Blueberry Tea. The former is a chilled drink of equal parts brewed Earl Grey tea and gin with lemon juice and sugar; the latter is a blend of Grand Marnier, Amaretto and hot black tea.

Another method that produces a more intriguing result is to steep the tea in the alcohol directly. This is Gold's preferred approach. Several years ago, as a chef with an interest in tea, she was drawn to incorporating the flavors she found so exciting into both food and drink. "Virtually none of my recipes with tea, whether they are food or beverages, really taste like tea. Tea for me is more often than not the secret ingredient that allows you to change the flavor profile. It can serve to highlight flavors, be a bridge between flavors, add balance, add complexity and so much more," she says. To create a unique cocktail, she starts by slowly infusing an alcohol with various herbs, spices and dried fruits at room temperature, then adding tea leaves for a short period of time before straining. The slow, cool steep not only maintains the alcohol level, it allows her to extract exactly the desired flavor from the tea. Hot steeping can extract too much of the harsh tannins too quickly, leaving the alcohol bitter. Straining is the next important step. The infused alcohol must be free of all traces of tea and other ingredients to ensure a long shelf life.

Infusing alcohol in advance is a twofold boon for service. Drinks can be made faster, and with more consistent results. "At the very beginning I experimented with other things and I found that it was one way when I served it, and it was another way when the bartender served it. That was unacceptable. Do all the fussiness beforehand and do not burden your staff at service time," Gold advises.

On the creative side, tea offers an entirely new world of flavors to explore, a learning process with a lot of pleasurable trial and error. "They're a lot of fun to play with, because you keep tasting as you go," says Gold. "You can keep adjusting the ingredients and the [steeping] time until you're really happy with the end results. It makes the whole experience very enjoyable." Her palate often directs her to dragonwell or sencha, two green teas that lend crispness to the drink. Oolongs, or partially oxidized teas, present a wide range of complexity from fruity to earthy and smoky. For extra richness, she chooses from among black teas.

For Gold, what started as a matter of personal taste and interest has grown into a well-established part of the Park Plaza's afternoon tea and cocktail service. "I strongly sense, and I hope, that it's an emerging trend," she comments. At least two beverage companies agree, and have brought products similar to Gold's into the marketplace: Suntory's Zen Liqueur, made with green tea, lemongrass and other herbs, and Charbay's Green Tea Vodka, a recipe the company says took five years to perfect.

"Of course it will take the public embracing it for it to stay a part of our menus," Gold continues. "But if it's not going to excite their palates, then they're not going to return to it. It gives us that opening and it's up to us to win them over."

RECIPES:

White Port with Black Tea, Apricot and Lychee

For the port:

1 quart white port
1/3 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup lychees, coarsely chopped
4 thin slices ginger
1/2 cup China Congou tea*

* Available through Upton Tea, (800) 234-8327 or www.uptontea.com.

For the port. In non-reactive container, combine port, apricots, lychees and ginger. Let steep 20 minutes. Stir in tea and steep until infused to taste, about 20 minutes more. Strain through triplelayer of cheesecloth, repeating as needed to remove all solids. Transfer to glass bottle and store at room temperature.

Green Tea Martini

For the infused vodka:

1 quart vodka
1/2 cup Dragonwell or Sencha tea*
1/4 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped**
1/4 cup dried quince, coarsely chopped
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup dried mallow blossoms

For the martini: