Services. Tea Dainties
Ideal tea dainty must be tasty (otherwise, why at all have them?), light — not to muffle the taste of tea itself and not to turn the tea-drinking into chasing food down with liquid — and unusual, especially so, if served to an unusual tea.
All these properties pertain to the traditional Taiwanese tea dainty — spicy sun-cured and dried fruit and vegetables. Besides being tasty, light and unusual, some of these tea dainty possess one more property — they are mysterious.
You might be aware that one of the ’tidbits’ to the Oriental cuisine is the skill of disguising the initial products used in cooking. That is to make sure that the person treated to the meal would never guess what it is made of. Among the Taiwanese tea dainty such ’masquerade’ is frequent. The highland crispy sun-cured prunes produce an impression of some outlandish fruit; the sun-cured tomatoes may be easily taken for prunes; the candied flavorful dainty can only be identified as olives, when you get to the stone, and the densely flavored candied peel takes even longer to see that it is prune.
Cured prunes crispy
Tight crispy fruits with gentle taste of a cherry-prune are a perfect company for the light oolongs; they don't distort the exquisite taste of the latter, instead, they underline it with the delicate crispiness.
Dried prunes with peppermint
The saturate, slightly spicy and variable taste of these prunes induces an effect of a pleasant thirst you want to quench with tea. Try these prunes with different teas.
Cured prunes with coffee
A softly cured tiny prune that melts in your mouth as a Mocco chocolate bar; it perfectly fits the taste of intense oolongs or red (black) teas of vivid taste and strong aroma.
Cured prunes with jasmine
Jasmine flavor pierces the flesh of these prunes, refreshing and surprising, and their taste reminds of apricot jam. It is a perfect match for light oolongs: exquisite and piquant.
Milky cured prunes
If you like sweets and are keen on staying fit — this is your dessert. A cured prune sprinkled with powdered milk, with warm hues to its taste to ideally accompany red teas.
Sweet olives
Tight, bright-lemon, sweet and crispy fruits will pleasantly surprise you — it is hard to recognize them as plain olives. The taste of this dainty does not unfold immediately — stand by for surprises.
Sweet tomatoes Cherry
A dainty, completely irregular for European cuisine — it doesn't even have a certain name. Probably, the right thing is to call them 'cured vegetables'.
Cured kumquats
The piquant sweet and sour taste of kumquats blends well with the taste and fragrance of tea. This combination is both classical — as that of a tea with lemon, and extravagant.
Sweet cured peaches
In the Oriental culture, a peach is a fruit standing for health and longevity, an analog to the 'food of gods' in Europe. In combination with tea, these small fruit-sweets turn into a refined dainty.