In this post, I’ll share with you the recipe for Chinese Tea Eggs or Cha Yeh Dan. Cha yeh means tea leaves and dan means egg. Chinese Tea Egg is a popular snack that can be found everywhere in Taiwan such as 7-eleven, street vendors and even nigh market. In the U.S., many boba tea shops carry it.
What’s special about this lightly salted hard boil egg is its dark color marbling effect on the egg white along with subtle tea and spice flavor when you bite into it. I’ve eaten this egg since I was a kid and never get tired of eating it.
This egg can be a great snack, breakfast and also a nice compliment to lunch. Making it at home is also easy and doesn’t require too much of your time. Ingredients used for making this egg is simple and can be easily found in most supermarket.
Ingredients
- 6-10 eggs
- 1 oolong tea bag (or 1 tbsp. of oolong tea leaves)
- 2 tbsp. of black tea (or 2 black tea bags)
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 star anise
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 tsp of cumin powder
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1 tbsp. of rock sugar (or regular sugar)
- 1/3 cup of dark color soy sauce
- 6 cups of water
As a rule of thumb, it’s always better to use good quality teas so that the tea eggs won’t have a bitter aftertaste. Usually, tea used in tea bags is more inferior in quality than tea leaves. However, the teas I used don’t have this problem.
Using a combination of oolong tea and black tea will produce tastier and more fragrant tea eggs than using black tea along. White tea and green tea are not recommended because they are not fermented and are not as fragrant as the other two.
I recommend using dark color soy sauce so the marble effect on the egg white appears more vibrant. You can also use regular soy sauce or gluten-free soy sauce if you have a gluten allergy.
I use rock sugar or crystal sugar in this recipe but regular sugar is perfectly fine.
Chinese Tea Eggs
