"No matter where you are in the world, you are at home when tea is served." - Earlene Grey
Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of reunions under the bright full moon. And one of the best accompaniments to big festival feasts and long catch-up conversations is tea.
Our go-to tea for Mid-Autumn Festival is ripe Puerh tea because, as a fermented tea, it serves as a cleansing tonic to help digest heavy food. In fact, studies have shown that it helps balance blood sugar, lower cholesterol levels, and it may help prevent our bodies from storing fat.
More than that, the flavour of ripe Puerh tea is very earthy, calming and grounding. It is often served at Dim Sum restaurants in Hong Kong, so tasting a ripe Puerh tea, wherever you are in the world, evokes memories of family time.
To present these memories in gift form, we designed a new gift set called Grand Reunion, which holds 3 ripe Puerh teas, each very different from the other but all with aromas that evoke the memories of home comforts.
Our Grand Reunion gift set is available to pre-order now at 10% off until 31 August. It will be available for delivery/collection from 1 September onwards.
Our Grand Reunion gift set contains 3 types of ripe Puerh tea:
- Palace Puerh 宮廷普洱
- Tangerine Puerh 小青柑
- Rice Scent Aged Puerh 糯香茶化石
Each of these has a very distinct flavour. You can serve any of them with a big family meal, as they all pair well with heavy food and help with digestion.
How to pair tea with mooncakes
It's fun to try different teas with different mooncakes at home to see which pair well. You'll know you've found a good pairing when the flavour of each enhances the flavour of the other. Or when both flavours blend seamlessly in your mouth.
The best method is to taste the tea first, then have a bite of mooncake, then drink more of the tea afterwards.
Here are some mooncake pairings that we love with our ripe Puerh teas:
1. Palace Puerh 宮廷普洱
Origin: Menghai, Yunnan, China
Tasting notes: Earthy, woodsy, velvety
Once a tribute tea for emperors, this silky ripe Puerh is made purely of young buds, which gives it a silky smooth, velvety texture.
We found that it pairs well with a wide range of mooncakes, especially:
- Red bean paste mooncakes
- White lotus seed egg yolk mooncakes
- Egg custard mooncakes
2. Tangerine Puerh 小青柑
Origin: Menghai, Yunnan, China & Xinhui, Guangdong, China
Tasting notes: Earthy, citrus, velvety
Green tangerines are dried and skillfully hollowed out, then filled with 5-year-aged ripe Puerh tea to make this soothing, nourishing brew. The earthy Puerh melds perfectly with the tangy citrus peel, giving a balanced flavour that is very comforting.
It pairs well with a wide range of mooncakes, especially:
- Egg custard mooncakes
- Yuzu, tangerine, or any citrus-flavoured mooncakes
- Mooncakes with nut fillings
3. Rice Scent Aged Puerh 糯香茶化石
Origin: Menghai, Yunnan, China
Tasting notes: Earthy, congee, pandan
Aged tea fossils are steamed with a 'sweet rice leaf’ (糯米葉) plant to produce this fascinating yet familiar tea that warms the body and aids digestion.
Rice Scent Aged Puerh pairs well with a wide range of mooncakes, especially:
- White lotus seed egg yolk mooncakes
- Black sesame mooncakes
- Chocolate-flavoured mooncakes
We hope you enjoy pairing these teas with festival favourites and sharing them with loved ones this Mid-Autumn.
