Book of Days Tales

Today is International Tea Day which, on the surface, sounds like a day to celebrate tea drinking. We can, of course, but the day was originally created as a way to raise awareness about the problems surrounding tea production and how tea plantations, small tea growers, and consumers are impacted by the global tea trade. Simply put, global tea prices are too low to be able to provide workers worldwide with living wages and to prevent child labor without significant global regulation and monitoring. Potentially, therefore, if you drink tea and are not mindful of the source of your product, you may be contributing to world poverty. I have a very simple solution – I don’t drink tea (or coffee, which suffers from the same problems). If you do drink tea, one step forward is to ensure that your tea is produced in an ethical and sustainable way. The Fairtrade Foundation http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/what-is-fairtrade/who-we-are is one organization that can help you.

Cooking with tea covers the waterfront. You can use your favorite tea as a simmering liquid in place of stock, or you can use tea as an ingredient. Japanese matcha is a favorite for recipes from meat rubs to ice cream. For example:

Matcha and White Chocolate Biscuits

Ingredients

¾ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon plus 2 Tbsp. matcha
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
½ cup (packed) light brown sugar
1½ tbsp honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
3 oz white chocolate, chopped

Instructions

Whisk ½ cup granulated sugar and ½ tsp matcha in a small bowl. Set aside.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons of matcha in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter, brown sugar, honey, and remaining ¼ cup of granulated sugar in a medium bowl until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg, egg yolk, and lemon zest and mix until very pale, about 4 minutes.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and, with the motor running, add the flour mixture. Mix thoroughly until no dry spots remain. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, mix in the white chocolate.

Wrap the dough in plastic and chill at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Scoop the dough by the scant tablespoonful on to 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them about 1” apart. Or, portion the same amount of dough into the cups of a mini muffin pan coated with nonstick vegetable oil spray.

Bake, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, until the bottoms and edges are barely golden and cooked (top will no longer look wet), 8–10 minutes.

Immediately—but gently—toss the biscuits in the reserved matcha sugar and place on wire racks to cool.