Services. Tea Dainties
The Turquoise Tea Group has the pleasure to present (and certainly to recommend) the new range of Taiwanese tea dainties, composed of the dried and sun-cured vegetables and fruits, mushrooms, nuts, seeds and the rest of the delicious and unusual things.
Almost all of the new tea dainties are packaged into strong foiled bags with a blister (you can just easily close it and open it again) and the special degassing system (to better store the contents). It is convenient to work with these bags — you can operate the dainties without touching them, which — as you are most certainly aware of — is especially important in a café or a restaurant.
All of our dainties are multifunctional. They can simply be used as an extraordinary chaser for tea or an unusual compliment. Each of the dainties can be attached to a certain tea. Combined with the various delicacies, liquors and — naturally — tea, these dainties can blend into unusual and very extremely interesting gastronomical bouquets.
And, naturally, all these dainties are extremely yummy. We’re munching on them all the time!
And now the particulars:
Sun-cured Taiwanese pineapple (100 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured pineapples, sugar. 100 grams contain 0.2 g of fat, 88.6 g of carbohydrates, 0.3 g of proteins, and 7.8 mg of sodium. The product contains iron, calcium and vitamin C. Caloric value in 100 grams is 357.4.
In Taiwan, quite possibly, there are the tastiest pineapples — the most fragrant and the juiciest. And we spent a lot of time and effort to have the sun-cured Taiwanese pineapples preserve their innate attributes. The convenient texture, a favorable balance of the pleasing sugar and the refreshing sour, the concentrated taste, the feeling of luxury and the miraculous exotica (it might be similar, in fact, to those sensations of a Hyperborean tasting a tropical fruit for the first time) — it all ends well.
Pineapple juice, when sun-cured, undergoes a peculiar metamorphosis — it turns into a thick and fragrant syrup, visible to such an extent that it seems like it is about to drip off the pieces of dried fruit any moment.
Sun-cured plums with mint (50 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured plums, salt, sugar, mint, licorice, sweetener (aspartame). 100 grams contain 0 g of fat, 40 g of carbohydrates, 10 g of proteins, and 3.5 g of sodium. Caloric value in 100 grams is 200.
Sun-cured plums with mint are our traditional dainty, kept in the product range from the very first days of the company. We are just improving its taste and quality. The thing about the sun-cured plum with mint is its palate contrasts. It is almost simultaneously sweet, pleasantly sour and freshly minty — this explosion of taste often hits the nail during a tea party. Since tea mostly is a calm and soft drink, the boisterous harmony of minty plums blends in excellently.
Usually, we recommend serving mint plums with intense teas — the black (red) and matured. However, it is an interesting experiment to try them with some oolongs — the roasted ones, in particular.
Sun-cured cherry tomatoes (150 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured tomatoes, sugar, fructose, citric acid, coconut oil. 100 grams contain 0.6 g of fat, 78 g of carbohydrates, 6.3 g of proteins, and 34 mg of sodium. The product contains iron, calcium, vitamins A and C. Caloric value in 100 grams is 342.6.
In the Taiwanese gastronomical tradition, the cherry tomatoes (and their analogs) — fresh and otherwise — are mainly used to make desserts. This is why a dried fruit dainty made of these pretty tomatoes is an everyday thing for the Taiwanese. For us however, a sun-cured sweet cherry tomato is a surefire Oriental exoticism — yummy, odd and cool. And indeed, it is a wonderful gastronomical surprise for your guests.
When making the sun-cured cherry tomatoes, you can change them beyond all recognition, so simply telling they are tomatoes would become impossible. We decided against it; our tomatoes preserve their characteristic notes. That way it is more interesting.
Five-Spice Raisins (150 grams)
Ingredients: raisins, fruit-sugar, hibiscus, ginger, rose extractive, plum powder, licorice. 100 grams contain 0.28 g of fat, 30.76 g of carbohydrates, 1 g of proteins, and 7.8 mg of sodium. The product contains iron, calcium and vitamin C. Caloric value in 100 grams is 130.
Raisins are a simple and a self-evident tea chaser. To those who understand, a cup of tea and a handful of raisins is enough to have quite a celebration of taste. We long had this desire to introduce raisins into our dainty range, but we did not need just any raisins! And we made the right ones. After a few years of combining raisins with the various spices (if you only knew what exotica we put it through!), we now have a product, which first has the raisins’ good and pleasant taste carried on with licorice, then intensified by ginger, then shaded off with hibiscus and plum, and at last finished off with rose notes. And tea follows.
Sun-cured plums with chilies (50 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured plums, salt, sugar, licorice, red pepper extractive, sweeteners (acesulfame, aspartame). 100 grams contain 0 g of fat, 40 g of carbohydrates, 10 g of proteins, and 3.5 mg of sodium. Caloric value in 100 grams is 200.
Not a single delicacy list will be complete without a dainty magically contrasting the fruity chocolate and the pepper — the real hot good old pepper. Naturally, one has to know the limits here — or harmony turns to chaos. We knew these limits. First the sun-cured plum, then the surprising pepper, and then the sweetness again — a natural reaction to the pepper hot. A must here is tea to wash off the receptors, and there we go over again!
The spicy plums are merely interesting in the dual gastronomical combinations — tea and plums, but also in triple combinations like tea, plums and cheese. It’s a must to try.
Sweet sun-cured olives (150 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured olives, sugar, salt, licorice. 100 grams contain 0 g of fat, 65 of carbohydrates, 5 g of proteins, and 350 mg of sodium. Caloric value in 100 grams is 260.
Sweet olives are exactly what they are. That is, they are whole olives, candied as they usually do with fruits and berries. It came out delicious — the olives retained their rich, softly oily and slightly gummy finish, just making it sweeter — a little like marzipan, or coconut flakes soaked in sweet syrup. However, all these comparisons are rather conditional. Sweet olives are primarily themselves; one needs to try.
Please beware: in the new range of the tea dainties it is only the olives that come whole. The stones don’t get in the way, naturally, but one should know. They are still stones.
Sun-cured plums with raw sugar (50 grams)
Ingredients: sun-cured plums, salt, raw sugar, licorice, sweetener (aspartame). 100 grams contain 0 g of fat, 40 g of carbohydrates, 10 g of proteins, and 3.5 mg of sodium. Caloric value in 100 grams is 200.
Behind the seeming simplicity and obviousness of this dainty, at least two ploys lie. The first ploy is the use of plum breeds unusual to our land; when dried it has a pleasant but yet fairly sour palate. The second one is the use of raw sugar as a flavor. On the one hand, it compensates the sour taste of plums producing a pleasant and harmonious contrast with it. On the other hand, it adds on aroma and candy-like feel to the dainty, making it a universal tea chaser.
These plums fuse in perfectly with practically any tea. When accompanying light teas, the refreshing sour is playing along. And when the tea is intense — it is the sweetness and the fragrance.
Crisps with cranberries and cashew (150 grams)
Ingredients: cashew nuts, cane sugar, malt, rice, dried cranberries, sesame, salt, concentrated grape juice, pumpkin seeds, natural cranberry extractive. 100 grams contain 32.3 g of fat, 46.6 g of carbohydrates, 16.4 g of proteins, and 43 mg of sodium. Caloric value in 100 grams is 543.
These crunchy crisps don’t need a special introduction — it’s enough to say what is in them. Cashew, cranberries, sesame, pumpkin seeds, concentrated grape juice, popped rice — if you mix it all up, munch it down and chase it with tea, then you get a very peculiar poly-sensual effect. Crisps are simultaneously cookies, nuts, and sun-cured fruit. That is, we fused all of the tea-chasing classics within one small candy. And it worked great!
By the way, the crisps most possibly have a very high dietary potential. Indeed, we have been optimizing these palate-wise to blend with tea, yet the ingredients are still very healthy and balanced.
Sun-cured shiitake mushrooms (135 grams)
Ingredients: shiitake mushrooms, spices, sugar, soy sauce, salt, natural preservative E202. Caloric value in 135 grams is 470.
The shiitake mushroom is one of the most famous components of the Far-Eastern gastronomy and medicine (it is often referred to as longevity mushroom, and it also is one of the main specimen in fungal therapy). Its use is extremely broad, and recipes with it abound. Fairly often these mushrooms are used to cook the so-called mockups — for example, to imitate jerky. That kind of jerkies is not just original to accompany tea, but is also delicious, and, should we say, archetypical, since it brings about the best of the feelings in people — the love of meat. And it is perfectly harmless, too — there are practically no calories in these fungi. If you are a fan of the good matured beef jerky, do try these mushrooms.
Hot shiitake mushrooms (135 grams)
Ingredients: shiitake mushrooms, spices, sugar, soy sauce, salt, natural preservative E202. Caloric value in 135 grams is 470.
This is the sizzling version of the previously described shiitake mushrooms. It is perfectly fitting for the lovers of gastronomical surprise, the Calabria ham and the spices of the South-Eastern Asia. From the tea point of view, these mushrooms are good because after you have some, you are especially thirsty and capacious.
Please remember; the heat of these mushrooms is triggered only after a small pause. At first they do not feel particularly hot, but then they do open up in their fullest. Right at this point you got to have a tea bowl next to you— just let it cool down a bit.
Glazed pumpkin seed medley (135 grams)
Ingredients: pumpkin seeds, salt, sugar, cereals, food colorants, vitamin E, mustard, green tea, curry, bamboo, batata, pepper. Caloric value in 135 grams is 487.
Glazed pumpkin seeds is a popular snack to all kinds of drinks in the Far East — be that beer or tea. We put together a medley of the five popular tastes, and turned the pumpkin seeds (glazed with green tea and wasabi, curry, bamboo, batata, pepper and mustard) into a universal chaser for any tea — from the intensely black to light green. You just got to pick the right color.
The glazed pumpkin seeds have another nice nuance to them — they can be used as a tool in décor when laying out the table. That is you can quite simply spill some seeds next to those dishes that they will go well with.