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SubscribeSaturday, January 17, 2009
Chinese Marbled Tea Egg Recipe
I know it’s a bit early to start thinking about Chinese New Year, but I wanted to start a week ahead and post several recipes that would make perfect dishes for the upcoming Chinese New Year, such as this Chinese Marbled Tea Egg recipe.
Isn’t the shell of the Tea Egg absolutely gorgeous? The best part (other than eating) is to peel back the egg shell to see what kind of marbled design you end up with!
We generally eat these at room temperature or just slightly warm. In Northern China, Chinese Tea Eggs symbolize golden nuggets for the Chinese New Year feast – so if you’re lookin’ for a little more prosperity this coming year of the Ox update: it’s the Year of the Tiger this year! my Mama says you’d better make this recipe!
My friend Diana, author of Appetite For China recently was vacationing here in Tampa, Florida and I got to meet her! (yeah – we got a pic together too! at the end of the post.) She includes dried orange peel in her recipe and I’m sure she’ll be enjoying Chinese Tea Eggs with her parents in China.
For Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs, you’ll want to hard boil eggs first, and after they cool off, use a back of a teaspoon to gently crack the eggshell all over. Keep the eggshell intact, but the more you crack, the more intricate the design of the marble will be. Make those crack pretty deep, as that is how the tea/soy mixture will seep into the egg.
I was gentle at first, but after seeing that the eggshell stayed intact, I cracked the next egg a bit harder…and what a difference that made!
Chinese Marbled Tea Egg Recipe
Ingredients:
6 eggs
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 star anise
2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn (optional)
2 strips dried tangerine or mandarin orange peel (optional)Directions:
Gently place the eggs in a medium pot and fill with water to cover the eggs by 1-inch. Bring the pot to a boil, lower the heat and let simmer for 3 minutes. Remove the eggs (leaving the water in the pot) and let cool under running cool water. Using the back of the teaspoon, gently tap the eggshell to crack the shell all over. The more you tap, the more intricate the design. Do this with a delicate hand to keep the shell intact. To the same pot with the boiling water, return the eggs and add in the remaining ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately turn the heat to low. Simmer for 40 minutes, cover with lid and let eggs steep for a few hours to overnight. The longer you steep, the more flavorful and deeply marbled the tea eggs will be. In the photos above, I steeped for 5 hours. Mom likes to steep overnight.
And as I promised, here is the lovely Diana!
Chinese New Year book for kids
If you want to teach your kids about Chinese New Year, this book called 
Dragon Dance is great!
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61 Responses to “Chinese Marbled Tea Egg Recipe”
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you made wonderful marbled eggs.
Nice eggs!
There’s a little tea place by my house that sells these, and I absolutely needed to know how to make them. Turns out, like you’ve detailed here, I can easily recreate them in my kitchen (with a bit of time).
Thank you so much for the comprehensive recipe! Now I make these all the time!
http://cenabimus.blogspot.com/2011/10/chinese-tea-eggs.html
tea eggs are so delicious!!!!! i dont eat the yolk because i think its yucky, but i could literally eat 50 million of them all at once. sooo gooood
I tried making these eggs twice this past weekend and I just can’t figure out how to get the eggshell cracked enough to allow the soy mixture to seep in. Both times I *thought* it would be enough (my eggs looked just like yours in the second picture) and I allowed them to soak overnight. Only one looked right, the rest had barely anything. Any ideas on what I can do differently? As an aside, they did taste good.
SteamyKitchen replied: — February 6th, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
hmmmm…..that’s weird that one worked but the others didn’t! I’m stumped!
Hi! These look wonderful and I would like to try them. I’m wondering, though, do you leave them to steep out in room temp or can you store them in the fridge?
SteamyKitchen replied: — February 12th, 2012 @ 8:49 am
In refrig if you are steeping for more than a couple of hours.
Do you hard-boil the eggs and THEN heat them again and follow the steps? Or does this include hard-boiling the eggs?
SteamyKitchen replied: — March 20th, 2012 @ 12:11 pm
No, this recipe already includes the step of cooking the eggs.
But doesn’t so much cooking or simmering make the yolks get really overcooked and greyish? The grey yolk tastes more bitter than a yellow yolk. How is the yolk supposed to look when you do it properly? thanks.