Have your tea and eat it too

This month in our monthly tea series, Dixya of Food Pleasure & Health and I decided to research traditional way to eat tea leaves. Since studying to become tea sommeliers, we end up with a lot of tea leaf discard and were interested in figuring out sustainable ways to reduce this waste. Tea leaves, from what I’ve gathered, are great for plants and compost. Unfortunately living in a high rise apartment makes composting difficult for the time being.

I am a huge fan of Burmese style tea leaf salad, and you can check out Dixya’s take on laphet (the bitter addictive tea leaf paste that is the heart of this salad) and the full salad on her blog. In my research I found some interesting Japanese inspired recipes using good quality green tea leaves to make a simple salad. I had no idea I could just drizzle some sesame oil rice vinegar and soy sauce on my gyokuro leaves after steeping and enjoy them as a salad! The look reminds me of seaweed salad but I would definitely recommend this recipe as a morning or afternoon treat as ingesting the tea leaves means caffeine!

I got some inspiration from here and here for the recipe below, and decided to incorporate some chili and a rice bowl to the whole ensemble. Really the leaves can be eaten simply with steamed rice, or you can add some tofu, kimchi and other pickled items like I have here. I really just mixed together delicious foods I had on hand and the combo did not disappoint! The miso pickled onions will need to be made about a week ahead but they are worth it if you decide to partake!

Ingredients:

Gyokuro Tea Leaf Salad

2 tbsp dried gyokuro leaves

4 oz water

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (can sub rice vinegar or white wine vinegar)

1 tsp tamari or soy sauce

1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil

1/4 tsp chili oil

Rice Bowl

1/2 cup steamed rice

1/8 cup kimchi

2 tbsp miso pickled onions (see note)

1/4 cup tofu cubes, lightly steamed

1 tsp sesame seeds

extra chili oil and soy sauce to taste

1 tsp honey

1. Heat water to 140 degrees and steep tea leaves for about one minute. You can drink the liquid, use it for steeping your rice or discard.

2. Let leaves cool and toss with tamari, vinegar, sesame oil and chili oil. Set aside.

3. Assemble bowl with steemed rice at base of bowl, topped with tea leaf salad mixture, kimchi, pickles, tofu cubes and sesame seeds. Drizzle with honey, chili oil and soy sauce to taste. Stir before enjoying.

   • Note: Any picked veggies such as daikon or carrots can be used in this recipe. If you’d like to prepare the miso picked onions ahead, slice thick 3-inch pieces of about a 1/4 of white onion. Spread a thick layer of red miso paste at the bottom of a 4oz jar. Layer onion slices and miso stacked in the jar so that all onion pieces are fully covered with miso. Let sit for 5-7 days. Wipe off onion pieces before serving.