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TEA EGGS - HISTORICAL & 300 YEAR OLD RECIPE
Legend has it that the first Tea Egg shop was opened in ancient times when an old egg seller's grandson over boiled some eggs for him in a pot that had some tea leaves. The old man didn't realize the pot was full of tea leaves, and when he ate the eggs, he found that they were delicious, and started selling them.
The true orgins of this simple and popular street food is no doubt lost to history, but the earliest "recipe" I have found was written in the 清代 Qing dynasty , by a famous poet and foodie 袁枚 Yuan Mei, in his 1792 book, 隨園食單/随园食单 Suiyuan Shidan. The English translation was completed in 2018, and it's known as the Recipes from the Garden of Contentment: Yuan Mei's Manual of Gastronomy or The Way of Eating: Yuan Mei's Manual of Gastronomy
Here's the relevant excerpt, and English translation.
Tea Eggs (茶葉蛋)
Take one hundred chicken eggs1, add one liang of salt and coarse tea leaves. Boil for two incense sticks of time until done. If there are only fifty eggs, add five qian of salt, and increase or decrease the quantities of ingredients as required. They can be eaten as a snack.2
茶葉蛋
雞蛋百個，用鹽一兩、粗茶葉煮兩枝線香為度。如蛋五十個，只用五錢鹽，照數加減。可作點心。
Notes:
1This is definitely larger than “Family-Sized”.
2Tea eggs are one of the most commonly eaten Chinese snacks, and can be found in every neighborhood in China.
Recently, a modern Chinese culinary master 薛文龙 Xue Wenlong looked into this recipe, and asking old monks, learnt that (presumably massive) incense sticks were used to tell the time back in those days, and one incense stick of time was approximately 2 hours. He tested the old recipe, and agreed that 4 hours was the appropriate cooking time, and came up with a version of this traditional recipe.
他改用主料为五十枚鸡蛋，配料为茶叶六十克，调料为盐七十五克，绍兴酒三十毫升、八角四粒。在烹调前将鸡蛋用沸水略煮，捞入冷水中，将蛋壳敲碎，放入沙锅中，加茶叶、盐、酒、水以旺火烧沸，加盖，用小火慢煮，做出的茶叶蛋果然香气更浓。
My translation reads:
Boil 50 eggs in boiling water, dredge them in cold water, break the egg shells, put them in a clay pot, add 60 grams of tea, 75 grams salt, 30 ml of Shaoxing wine,and 4 star anise and water to a boil over high heat, cover, and simmer over a low heat for 4 hours.
Yuan Mei also uses the term 粗茶叶 "course" tea. I read an
analysis which feels that fragrant semi-fermented teas should be ideal for this, particularly teas picked in the Autumn (which have a more intense fragrance). I'm personally partial to a strong Oolong, like a a
铁观音, but others like a cheaper
White Peony also very suitable.
Note that no soy sauce is used for the traditional recipe, unlike the modern recipes below.
There are many "modern" recipes that have been translated to English.
Baidu also has a massive list of recipes, for Chinese readers, or anybody else with a translator
As "popular" dish, there are probably as many ways to make this as there are styles of omelets in the west.
Essentially, it comes down to
1) Boil your eggs, and gently crack them.
2) Boil your soy sauce & spices to create a marinade.
3) Boil or submerge your eggs in the marinade for an extended period of time.
The marinade penetrates the egg better at the cracks, creating a beautiful marbled effect when peeled.
NOTE: On the Baidu page, there's an alert about compounds in the tea reacting with the iron in the eggs, and possibly being not great for your health. Tea has been
suspected to
reduce the
proteins and
iron you
absorb, so there are home chefs who opt to exclude tea from tea eggs.
MY FAVOURITE VERSION
I prefer soft semi-molten egg yolks to hard boiled eggs.
I prefer to have maximum flavor infused into the egg, and I'm not fussed about the pretty marble pattern.
Most of all, I prefer to have most of the prep done ahead of time, so I can eat these delicious flavored eggs straight out of the fridge if I want, or warmed gently on a cold morning without much fuss.
SOAKING LIQUID VOLUME
Find a food safe container that fits the number of eggs you want, and measure the amount of water you need to use so that the eggs are submerged. I like to use a
container that I can have 1 layer of eggs, with the space filled up the marinating liquid.
If you have a kitchen scale, just weigh the amount of liquid you need, or measure with a measuring cup.
The rough guide for water, and most liquid masses :
1 gram = 1 ml = 1cm3
Deduct 55 from this for every egg you want (an average large egg weighs roughly 55grams, and has a volume of roughly 55 cm3), and you will have the mass of your soaking liquid.
Calculator notes:
I've included an option to use salt as-well-as / instead-of soy sauce. Just change the preferred ratios
A large egg is ~50g. Medium ~45g Extra Large ~55g
Please comment below if you are trying out different salt sauces, and let us know the results
PREP THE SOAKING LIQUID
1) Boil everything except the eggs together for 5 minutes and let it cool naturally, allowing the sugar to melt and the spices to steep their flavors into the liquid. Powdered spices steep faster, but are less potent. Feel free to use other spices (and let us know in the comment your recipe if it comes out well)
COOK THE EGGS
1) Poke a hole with a push
pin in the fat end of the egg, puncturing the air pocket / air sac
in the eggs. Your eggs will NOT leak out.
2) Immerse your fridge temperature eggs into boiling water for 6 minutes for soft boiled eggs, 12 for hard boiled eggs. Stir the water after placing each egg into the water. This is probably done for traditional reasons (I was told by an unreliable source that it was to give some centripetal force to the eggs so they settle in the shell better as they cook)
3) Once the eggs have cooked a sufficient period of time, plunge them into an ice bath to stop them from cooking (and more importantly, to make it easier to peel without burning your fingers).
4) Crack the egg shells gently with a spoon. If you want pretty marbling on your eggs, stop now. Otherwise, peel them for maximum flavor infusion.
5) Place them in your soaking container, then immerse them in the soaking liquid.
6) Cover your container, and place it in the fridge overnight, up to 5 days.
7) Eat it cold, or serve it in a bowl of hot ramen. Alternatively cut it into half and microwave it on low (they tend to explode if microwaved on high).
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