Food and Things » Tea

NY Coffee and Tea Festival Coming Feb. 19-20

Laura Weiss — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 03:06:31 +0000

Coffee pots. Photo by by Lotzman Katzman via flickr.

Coffee drinker or tea lover? Whatever your preference, the NY Coffee and Tea Festival may make you forget (at least for an hour or two) the awful winter we’re having.

Here are the details:

NYC’s COFFEE AND TEA FESTIVAL

What: The northeast Ultimate Barista Challenge® competition and a VIP tea tasting with two guest Hong Kong tea masters. Other offerings:

coffee cupping & tasting,
afternoon tea etiquette,
making tea cocktails,
incorporating coffee into your favorite recipes.
Exhibitors include: Melitta, Tavalon Tea, Harney & Sons Fine Teas, Jalima Coffee, Fang Gourmet Tea, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, TeaClassics, Aroma Espresso Bar, Hancha Tea, Coffee Lab Roasters, Montauk Beverage Works, Runa, Joe’s Coffee House, QTrade Teas, Entenmann’s Coffee, World Green Tea Association, and the Tea Association of the U.S.A.

Where: The Festival will be held at 7 W, 7 West 34th Street. The event is open to the public and the trade. www.CoffeeAndTeaFestival.com.

When: February 19-20, 2011

Tickets can be purchased in advance at: www.CoffeeAndTeaFestival.com. The event is sponsored in part by www.CoffeeAndTeaNewsletter.com. Prices range from $20-$40.

Southern Food: Upper West Side vs New Orleans

Laura Weiss — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:06:21 +0000

The trendy food in NY these days appears to be fried chicken, a classic dish from the south. For a taste of south on the Upper West Side, we have Rack & Soul on

Mother's Restaurant, New Orleans. Photo: Mother's.

Broadway at 109th Street. There you can munch on their crispy-on-the-outside, moist-on-the-inside fried chicken. There’s also some pretty good iced tea to wash it down with. But for a true taste of the south, you need to travel to a place like New Orleans, as I have this week, and find an eatery like Mother’s, where the grits, po boys and iced tea are unlike anything you can get in New York.

Rack and Soul's fried chicken, a taste of the south on the Upper West Side. Photo: Rack & Soul.

T he homey legendary New Orleans diner is staffed by friendly African-American ladies who call you “baby,” while dishing up fabulous grits, eggs, and sausage. It’s ballast for the rest of the day, if not for the rest of the week.

Another bonus at this New Orleans pit stop—and something nearly impossible to find in New York—is perfectly brewed ice tea, or “tea,” as it’s called in these parts. In New Orleans and in other parts of the south, the choice is unsweetened or sweet tea.

Here are some New Orleans foods I’ve discovered that are not known in New York:

Calas: Calas are a recently revived New Orleans food. Originally from Africa, slaves brought calas, made from rice, to the south and hawked them on the streets of New Orleans beginning in the mid-19th century. Something like a fritter, calas are deep fried, then sprinkled with sugar.
Creole Cream Cheese. No, this is not the stuff you put on a bagel. In the old days, before refrigeration, the people of New Orleans would take spoiled milk, wrap it in cheese cloth and hang it from a tree out back. Served for breakfast, it’s sprinkled with sugar.

Mother’s
401 Poydras St
New Orleans, LA
504 523 9656

Rack & Soul
258 W. 109th St.
New York, NY
212 222 4800

COOKIES: Buy or Bake These Tea Cookies for the Holidays

Laura Weiss — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:14:53 +0000

Dana Jacobi, an acclaimed food writer and cookbook author, will be contributing posts and recipes to Food and Things. Dana has written 10 best-selling cookbooks. Her latest is The Essential Best Foods Cookbook: 225 Irresistible Recipes Featuring the Healthiest and Most Delicious Foods.

Let us know how you like this recipe

Send us your holiday cookie recipes

A good cookie helps me chill out when holiday overload approaches.

When I can get to Amai Tea and Bake House, 171 Third Ave. (between 16th and 17th Sts.), I order their Tea Sweets—superb tea-flavored shortbread cookies. Together with a tea latte, they are as restorative as a yoga class.

Each shortbread tea flavor—from buttery green tea and spicy chai almond, to fruity white tea and strawberry—is filled with aromatic flavors. The individual flavors also boast unique shapes. For instance, the green tea ones are designed to look like a tea leaf.

And Amai’s decor, with its dark wood and exposed brick, is as soothing as its baked goods. The amiable service is calming, too.

When I cannot get to Amai, I make my own Green Tea Shortbread, from a recipe in the Essential Best Foods Cookbook. Putting a batch of this indecently rich treat together takes a total of 10 minutes. And there’s a bonus— your house will smell heavenly.

GREEN TEA SHORTBREAD
Makes 8 pieces

(Get matcha powdered green tea at most Japanese market, including Katagiri, 224 East 59th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Ave.) www.katagiri.com, Sunrise Mart (29 Third Ave) or the tea and coffee counter at any Whole Foods Market.)

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon powdered matcha green tea
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup superfine or granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut in small pieces
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, tea, and salt.

3. Place the sugar in the bowl of a food processor. If using granulated sugar, whirl it for 1 minute to turn it into superfine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like pebbles. Add the flour mixture and pulse until a coarse, loosely granular dough forms.

4. Turn the dough into an ungreased 8-inch round cake pan. With your fingers, quickly work in any powdery bits then press the dough into an even layer in the pan.

5. Bake for 15 minutes. Make a border by pressing the flat bottom of the tines of a fork in a circle around the outside of the dough. With the tips of the tines, prick the dough all over. Using a sharp knife, score the dough into 8 wedges.

6. Return the shortbread to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden. Do not let it brown.

7. Place the pan on a rack to cool for 10 minutes. Rescore the wedges and run a knife around the edge of the shortbread to loosen it. Invert the pan and gently unmold the shortbread. Cool and break into wedges. Serve the shortbread warm or at room temperature. The shortbread keeps in an airtight container for 5 days.

Food News: Tea for Good Taste…and Good Health

Laura Weiss — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:46:00 +0000

As a die-hard tea drinker, I like to see tea given its due. Often it’s portrayed as the also-ran to coffee, but these days tea is being lauded as a tasty–and healthy–drink.

Says the Daily News in a recent story about the brew: “Hundreds of recent studies show that drinking tea may lower your cholesterol, protect your bones, bolster your immune defenses, and even increase your metabolism.”

And there are lots of exotic types to try, including Pu-erh, White Peony, Dragon Well, and Jade Oolong.

Gramercy and Midtown Tea Shops: Two for Tea

Laura Weiss — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:53:00 +0000

As the Times reported last week, two new tea shops have opened and each one has a distinct personality.

In Gramercy, on Third Avenue at 17^th, Amai Tea and Bake Shop is cozy and warm. Kelli Bernard, the proprietor, keeps her tea in vintage library card catalogues and the place exudes a neighborly feeling.

The tea is excellent and so are the pastries, including a butter cookie laced with green tea. It’s great that for 75 cents, I could pop one of these small delicate treats into my mouth and feel my need for something sweet and sinful satisfied.

Uptown at Tafu New York, it’s all modern, sleek and spa-like right down to the soothing background music. The branch of a Japanese-owned company, Tafu brews terrific green tea and also offers a limited menu of intriguing tea-inspired items like miniature cheesecakes and chocolates. You can also purchase teas and various accessories.

Amai

171 Third Ave.
New York, NY
212 863 9630

Tafu

569 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY
212 980 1319