Marbled Chinese Tea Eggs
Chinese tea eggs are basically the fabergé egg snack you never asked for. Also called soy sauce eggs or marbled tea eggs, Chinese tea eggs are a delicious Asian snack made by boiling eggs, gently cracking all over its shell, and then letting the eggs steep in a rich soy sauce and five spice mixture. It sounds bizarre, but it’s pretty tasty and super beautiful. And I guarantee it’ll get you more Instagram hearts than some lame ass poached egg #haters #yolkporn #eggcellent #hashtag.
The cooking in Spirited Away gets me. Source: Giphy
Learning how to make Chinese tea eggs / five spice eggs / black tea eggs is pretty simple and the whole process involves about 30 minutes of effort. You can make big old batches of these and even snack on them later (7-Eleven in Taiwan sells 40 million a year!). This Chinese tea eggs recipe is on the traditional side and uses black tea, soy sauce and a five spice mixture, but you can really swap out any of those components as you’d like with the cooking process.
In NYC, Vietnamese restaurant Nhà Minh makes a delicious coffee egg using this process but fully cracking their eggs and immersing them in coffee. In Taiwan, some folks have dyed their eggs with lighter teas and sweet berry mixtures. In Indonesia, you can find them made with shallots and guava leaves. Get weird and go viral and try whatever combo you’d like!
Vietnamese coffee eggs from Nhà Minh in Brooklyn, at the Village Voice Choice Eats festival
Learn how to make marbled Chinese black tea eggs using this simple overnight recipe. A Chinese tradition, Chinese tea eggs can also be made with dye or coffee.
Learn how to make marbled Chinese black tea eggs using this simple overnight recipe. A Chinese tradition, Chinese tea eggs can also be made with dye or coffee. They can be flavored with Chinese five spice or whatever herbs you like.
Marbled Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 eggs (or however many you want)
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 star anise
- 2-3 black tea bags
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorn (or whole peppercorns)
- Dried orange peels (optional)
Instructions
- Place eggs in a medium-sized pot. Fill halfway with water, or enough to fully emerge eggs. Bring water to a full boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes.
- Keeping the water in the pot, gently remove the eggs and run under cold water until cool enough to handle.
- Using a large spoon, gently tap against the egg shells to crack the egg all over. Do not tap so hard as to fully crack the shell open.
- In the original pot with the original water, place all other ingredients and stir. Gently add in the eggs with tapped shells to the mixture.
- Put the mixture on medium-high heat until boiling and then reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes.
- Remove pot from heat, cover with lid, and let eggs steep 4 hours – overnight. The longer the steep, the more robust the flavor and design. If steeping overnight, be sure to put pot in the fridge.
Made soy sauce eggs at home? Tag your Chinese tea eggs with five spice photos with #PateSmith or share them in the comments for the chance to be featured onsite!
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