This innovative take on one of the world's oldest ingredients and most popular beverages is an invaluable tool for both home and professional cooks. Gold and Stern offer new ways of looking at tea: the leaves with a history stretching thousands of years is now a secret weapon in the culinary arsenal.

Tea in its many forms has been around for thousands of years, and is a burgeoning industry in many countries as the demand for specialty leaves grows. Read about the picking and drying techniques virtually unchanged for centuries, popular growing regions in the world, and the storied past of trading.

Culinary Tea has all this, plus more than 150 recipes using everything from garden-variety black teas to exclusive fresh tea leaves and an in-depth treatment of tea cocktails. It includes classics, such as the centuries-old Chinese Tea-Smoked Duck and Thousand-Year Old Eggs, as well as recipes the authors have developed and collected, such as Smoked Tea-Brined Capon and Assam Shortbread.

Reviews and press

"Beautiful, imaginative, and wonderfully clear, what Cynthia Gold and Lisë Stern have given us is nothing less than a new dimension to the culinary arts. Here is the simply indispensable work on tea with cooking and cooking with tea. In time we will all pay our compliments to the chef." - James Norwood Pratt, author of The Tea Lover’s Treasury and The Tea Lover’s Companion

“Everyone loves tea, but not many know that you can cook with it as well, and not just the classic recipes like Tea-Smoked Duck. Cynthia and Lisë have put together over 250 pages filled with savory and sweet recipes that use tea as an ingredient. From the Orange Spice Tea-Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Mango-Peach Salsa to the Earl Grey Cream Tea Cake, this book will take you way beyond a cup of tea.” - Ming Tsai, host of award-winning PBS series, Simply Ming

“Culinary Tea is authoritative, inspiring, and useful for any cook passionate about bringing new and authentic flavors to their cooking. Cindy and Lise give us a wealth of details, ideas, flavor profiles, and cooking methods in addition to tantalizing recipes. In no time you will be deglazing pans with tea, cooking rice in it, brining poultry and making soup with it, not to mention concocting ice creams, cookies and desserts. Tea may well be the next big flavor… I’m totally on board.” - Alice Medrich, author of Bittersweet and Pure Dessert