I am a culinarian, having worked in restaurants in Greece and California for several years. To expand my knowledge of food and beverages, I attended the World Tea Conference and Expo at Las Vegas, where I tasted teas that blew my socks off. I met Cynthia, an established tea businesswoman, and it was there and then I had an inkling that my culinary destiny was about to change course.

 

Cynthia told me about The Specialty Tea Institute in Dallas Texas, where I met Kyle Stewart, a tea guru, who took me through tea processes, characteristics and flavors. The amazing taste sensations and varieties of tea was a shock I wasn’t expecting. I was excited and felt like an explorer in a new frontier. An idea was taking shape: food and tea pairing.

 

Who’d have thought that chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, malbec, and so many more grape varieties have what a growing cohort accepts as at least wine’s equal in food-matching teas: Darjeeling, Himalayan Green, White, Oolong.

 

Just as different wines are made from one main ingredient: grapes, so too is tea derived from a single, perfect and natural ingredient: camellia sinensis. But what allows one ingredient to produce different taste varieties and styles? The answer is in the growing environment of the plant, and the time and method used for harvesting and processing.

 

The practice of pairing wine and food is thousands of years old, while tea and food pairing as a culinary sensation has long been overlooked. We’ve been told that white wine matches with seafood, and red wine must be paired with meat, whereas tea offers taste pairing sensations that far exceed wine's more simple strategies.

 

I am here to challenge the thinking surrounding food pairing, to show you how to enhance your enjoyment of the foods you choose, with tea. I am not going to tell you to stop drinking tea with your friends as a quick refreshment option, but I will guide you to push your traditional boundaries with tea.

 

Not only is tea more economical than wine, but its ability to enhance food is greater, and it doesn’t leave you with a headache if you have too much. You actually can’t have too much tea because it’s so good for you.

 

Welcome to the revolution – tea and food pairing.

 

Love,

Vladyslav Rabcheniuk