Dongding Oolong Tea Egg

The oolong tea egg is a specialty of Lugu township in Nantou county, the home of Dongding oolong, Taiwan's most famous tea, grown on the slopes of Dongding mountain since the 1850s when tea bushes were brought from Fujian. The tea egg itself, a hard-boiled egg cracked and re-steeped in tea, soy and spice to give a marbled brown surface, is eaten across the Chinese world, but Lugu's version uses the local Dongding oolong, whose roasted, nutty depth flavours the steep more richly than a generic black tea. The egg is boiled hard, its shell cracked all over without peeling, then simmered for an hour or more in a brew of Dongding oolong leaves, soy sauce, star anise, cinnamon and sugar, the spiced tea seeping through the cracks to marble the white and flavour the egg through to the yolk. Sold hot from stalls at Lugu's tea farms and on the mountain road, the egg is the savoury companion to a tea-tasting, the two products of the same slopes paired, and it represents the ingenuity of turning a drink crop into a food.

A hot, peeled egg, the white marbled brown from the tea seeping through the cracks, firm and deeply savoury with roasted oolong and warm spice, the yolk still soft and powdery within. Eaten hot, on the mountain road, with a cup of Dongding.

The technique is the crack-and-resteep. Eggs are hard-boiled, then their shells cracked all over by tapping with the back of a spoon, the shell left on so the spiced tea seeps through the cracks rather than coating the egg directly. The cracked eggs are then simmered in a brew of Dongding oolong tea, soy sauce, sugar, star anise, cinnamon and sometimes dried citrus peel, for at least an hour, ideally several, the longer the steep the deeper the flavour penetrates to the yolk. The tea tannins and soy salt season the egg white through the cracks, creating the marbled brown pattern, and the warm spices perfume the whole. The cracked shell acts as a sieve, the tea flowing through the cracks but the shell holding the egg intact, and the pattern left on the white maps the cracks. After steeping the eggs are kept in their brew in the fridge and reheated, the flavour deepening over days. The choice of Dongding oolong, with its roasted, nutty character, gives a deeper flavour than a plain black tea.