Radisson Blu Hotel, Dwarka recently collaborated with an organic tea brand ‘T-Tales’ to create tea-infused mocktails/ cocktails and desserts using flavoured organic teas.
We all know drinking organic tea is healthy. But people refrain from adopting this wellness drink in their lifestyle due to lack of flavours in the Indian organic market.
Neera Bhatnager too expressed this sentiment till a few years ago. She enjoyed tasting organic green teas in different flavours when she travelled abroad but couldn’t find any in India. To alleviate her tastebuds and give Indians a break from plain green tea, she started T-Tales in 2018.
T-Tales offers organic tea in a variety of fresh and fruity flavours. There’s mango, blueberry, hibiscus, chamomile, jasmine, passion fruit and peppermint, besides the usual flavours such as masala chai, Assam tea, black tea and earl grey, to name a few.
Each flavour reveals a different story and that’s what led the founder call the brand ‘T-Tales’.
“Through our brand, we want to educate people about the stories behind each flavour of tea. For instance, we want people to know that peppermint tea is good for stomach, and aids digestion. Similarly, blueberry tea is good for your immune system,” explains Neera.
Though as standalone products, these teas can be consumed, many hotels in Delhi are using flavoured tea to create a tea-inspired menu. T-Tales’ recent collaboration with Radisson Blu Hotel in Dwarka, New Delhi, gave a glimpse of the same. Chefs at the hotel have used the organic flavoured teas in drinks and desserts.
The chamomile tea, which leaves a calming effect on the body, became an ingredient in one of the cocktails/ mocktails.
Tareena Bhatnager, Creative Marketing Head, T-Tales, said that the idea of using an organic tea in cocktails is healthy.
“When we add chamomile/ jasmine tea to cocktails/ mocktails, we eliminate sugar syrup from the drink. This makes them less sweet and a healthy alternative,” she shares.
Similarly, pastry chefs are using flavoured teas to make cakes (Mumbai cutting chai brulee cake, blueberry tea cake slice (using blueberry tea), saffron delicacy baked yogurt (using ‘Saffron Delicacy’ tea flavour), green tea tiramisu (using green tea) and Moroccan delight macaroons (using ‘Moroccan Delight’ tea flavour).
To make ‘Moroccan delight macaroons’, chefs start by making a truffle out of the Moroccan delight tea (T-Tales’ flavoured tea) and fill the same in macaroons. Similarly, to make ‘Liscious Hibiscus jelly with Vedic Tulsi panna cotta’, they blend Liscious hibiscus tea with Vedic Tulsi tea, and make hibiscus jelly with Vedic Tulsi panna cotta. To make panna cotta, they boil and make a concentrate out of the tea, which is used for dessert.
Calling it a one-of-a-kind innovation, Ankit Hira, Pastry Chef, Radisson Blu Hotel, shares that acing the recipe wasn’t a cakewalk. This is because neither had his team worked with flavoured teas in desserts nor were they aware about the taste of the final product. he was also scared if the ingredients would blend with each other.
The Mumbai cutting chai brulee cake was an invention test for his team.
“Earlier we were planning to do a brulee, but then we did a fusion by combining the cake with the brulee. We were unclear if we had hit the jackpot till the time we demoulded the cake and tried it. This is because we were trying brulee (a French dessert) with a very traditional flavour of Mumbai's cutting chai,” he says.
Selecting the flavours of desserts was also challenging. However, unlike following a tried and tested recipe, the team made variations to place the perfect dessert on the menu using flavoured organic teas.
The flavoured organic teas and tea-infused menu is available at the Atrium, The Tea Lounge, Radisson Blu, Dwarka.