We’re exploring pairing tea and chocolate today with Debbie Raab, co-owner and co-founder of the unique and delightful Tea for All in Lawrence, New Jersey.
One of the things that makes Tea for All unique is its location inside the Trenton Farmers Market, the longest-running indoor farm market in New Jersey. Before delving into the pairings, Debbie shares with us a bit of the history of Tea For All and the tea journey she and her husband Mike Raab (Tea For All’s other co-owner and co-founder) have taken, as we discuss Debbie’s approach to teaching about tea and to creating and experimenting with pairings.
Debbie chats with us about her view of the importance of trial and error in exploring and experiencing tea and tea-chocolate pairings and her preferences for choosing chocolates for pairing , and then begins the pairings themselves. We taste six tea and chocolate pairings in all. During the pairings, we talk about the differences between pairings that contrast, pairings that complement and pairings that enhance the flavors of the tea and the chocolate, different methods for tasting the teas and the chocolates, and how tea and chocolate pairings can lead to new discoveries about the flavors and textures of our teas. And Debbie also tells us about some of Tea For All’s ongoing and periodic events, classes and tea practice sessions.
For easy reference for trying these or similar pairings at home, the time marks for the teas and types of chocolates (by cacao percentage) we paired are:
11:05: 58% cacao paired with a gyokuro kukicha (Tea For All’s Kukicha Supreme), followed by the same chocolate paired with Doke Black Fusion, a black tea from Bihar State, India.
21:21: 60% cacao paired with Ganesha Green, a Nepali green tea from the Kanchanjangha Tea Estate, followed by the same chocolate paired with Chota Tingrai Assam black tea from Assam, India.
30:50: 71% cacao paired with a black tea from the town of Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii (Tea For All’s Hawaii Volcano Premium Black).
36:25: 72% cacao paired with a Bao Zhong from Taiwan.
During the pairings we took some time between tasting the chocolates and tasting the teas to allow Debbie to brew the tea and to allow the flavors of the chocolate to settle in the mouth, and sometimes to take a palate cleanser (Debbie used small tidbits of celery). You won’t hear these gaps in the podcast, but you may want to take these pauses if you’re doing the pairings at home.
Tea for All is located in the Trenton Farmers Market, 960 Spruce Street, Lawrence NJ. Hours, event information and Tea For All’s online store are on its website, tea-for-all.com. You can find Tea For All on Instagram and and Facebook feeds at Tea-For-All Tea Shoppe.
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Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen.
The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.
This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.
Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.
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