Most coffee shops and restaurants offer tea but many fail to realise the full versatility and potential of the much loved tea leaf. From using tea as an ingredient to pairing tea with food, here are a few ways to offer your consumer something different in 2017:
1) Spice Things Up!
There are a multitude of different types of tea each with their own flavour profile. The taste profile of certain teas is similar to that of certain spices. Use tea as an ingredient to create original flavours for both your sweet and savoury offering. Refreshing your offering can help you to re-engage with your customers. Tea can work well to enhance the fruitiness of your sweet dishes and can produce a more smoky-like flavour in savoury offerings.
2) Pairing Tea with Food
Pairing wine with food is usually the norm for many diners at restaurants given the abundance of different flavour profiles. However, with the rise of the health conscious diner, pairing teas with food could prove to be a healthier and equally successful alternative.
Teas contain similar levels of flavour complexity to other fine cultured beverages without the calories or sugar. Not only does the beverage match our current eating culture but can also benefit restaurants in appealing to the flexible drinker to maximise drink sales. Lalani Tea Co founder, Jameel Lalani, suggests using origin-based teas rather than herbal infusions to achieve the best food/tea matching results.
3) Tea Cocktails
We’ve covered how tea could spice up your food offerings but what about your beverages? Tea has been used in combination with a variety of liquors over the years to create fruity and zesty infusions to entice the senses. Tea cocktails, in particular, have recently become more popular amongst restaurants and bars. The versatile beverage can be served hot and cold, making it a well-rounded drink for all seasons. See here how these bars and restaurants are using tea to produce exciting and new tea-infused drinks.
By Dawood Pathan
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