At the forefront of tea gastronomy, TWG Tea integrates a myriad of fine harvest teas and exclusive tea blends into traditional and innovative recipes as an essential component, imparting unique flavours, toying with taste buds, tantalising the palate, and introducing a whole new world of sensations and flavours to gourmands and tea lovers when they dine at TWG Tea Salons and Boutiques. What is actually “tea gastronomy”? Why is the art of incorporating tea to unique culinary creations by blending, infusing or powdering, tea leaves into a sweet or savoury recipe. The team at Savour BlackBookAsia did a splendid tasting recently and these are our star catches.
Your experience starts right at the beginning where freshly baked tea bread is served with a side of French butter topped with Genmaicha, a Japanese staple that blends perfectly the flavours of roasted popped brown rice together with the goodness in green tea. This add various dimension of textures and savoury notes to your bread.
Pairing well with the bread is the Mushroom Soup that is infused with Golden-Pu-Erh, which is a highly sought after tea that comes from the Yunnan Province in China. Buried after oxidization this tea yields earthy notes which compliment that from the mix of mushrooms used to make this rich and creamy soup, accompanied with some croutons. Good to know that Pu-Erh can be aged for more complex flavours in the proper condition.
Genmaicha Mushroom Linguine is a delectable take on the Italian linguine pasta, superbly cooked al dente tossed with sautéed forest mushroom in a light garlic and cream sauce, accompanied by wilted spinach, roasted asparagus and a soft cooked egg. This time Genmaicha is sprinkled furikake (savoury Japanese condiment) style to finish. Best eaten by mixing the egg together with the pasta before indulging.
Excellently pan-seared black cod fish served with Asian gremolata, accompanied by crushed potatoes with chilli oil, wilted baby spinach and a ginger butter emulsion with Gyokuro Samurai tea leaves. One of Japan’s most premium tea, Gyokuro is made only with the earliest leaf buds of the spring harvest grown from the tea varietal known as Yabukita. The almost foam like espuma balances the richness from the cod fish in the most ideal manner.
This juicy 350-day grain-fed Wagyu Tenderloin steak is served with a choice of green peppercorn sauce or béarnaise sauce, accompanied by mesclun salad drizzled with 1837 Green Tea that is used in making the vinaigrette. Truffle Matcha French fries is served in a hand made edible basket that is wafer thin. The fries are so good that we are going to try it ourselves at home.
French influenced dessert made of meringue topped with strawberry tuiles and a scoop of Vanilla Bourbon Tea ice cream served with fresh Japanese strawberries and sweet strawberry sauce. The ice cream is the highlight of this dish which is made from red African tea and is theine-free. Beautiful to look at and simply enjoyable on the palate.
Another traditional dessert from France is the Rum Baba, moist cake soaked in rum and coated with rum jelly. A scoop of Vanilla Bourbon Tea ice cream and served with Chantilly cream, garnished with powdered Rum Tea completes this amazing course. A must for lovers of rum, garnish with gold leaves and vanilla pod slice.
You would all know by now, TWG Tea’s signature 1837 unique blend of black tea with notes of fruits and flowers from the Bermuda triangle which leaves a lingering aftertaste of ripe berries, anise, and caramel. Let us introduce two more selections that will go well with the above dishes. The White Mist Tea: a declaration of love that blends liquid pearl, a nosegay of lover’s blossoms, cupid’s arrow in a drink, the silver tipped leaves of Yin Zhen are showered with heady roses yielding a white tea blend of marvellous mysteries. In our opinion one of the finest teas of the world: The White Sky Tea is again centered around the rare Yin Zhen white tea leaves which lend their crystalline flavour to this celestial blend with exceptional ylang ylang flower oil, like drops from heaven in a teacup. So fantastic that we bought some home from the adjacent TWG Tea shop to enjoy.
ADDRESS:
TWG Tea on the Bay at Marina Bay Sands, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, 2 Bayfront Avenue #B1-122/125 Singapore 018972
PHONE:
6535 1837
WEBSITE:
https://twgtea.com