Apple Tea

Apple Tea

Lebanon

For some reason Lebanon was a hard nut to crack. My first searches all brought up an iced tea recipe with rose water that was attributed to a Lebanese restaurant in New Orleans. I wasn't interested. Then I found reference to herbal teas made from local plants. Unfortunately those plants are not local where I live. I have no clue what some of those plants were, never mind where to find them (other than the internet). Then I found a spice tea recipe: star anise (yuck!), nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, poured over almonds, walnuts, pistachios, or pine nuts. I thought about making this without the star anise. Again, the nuts in the bottom of the cup sounded pretty good. However, this is a pretty common combination of spices (minus the usual tea leaves), so I kept looking.

Then I found apple tea. Again, sounds kind of suspect. Lebanon is not known for apples. I looked up their climate. Mediterranean. Hot, dry summers, cool, rainy winters, and heavy snow in the mountains in the winter. I pulled out my map. I didn't realize how teeny Lebanon really was. A small blip on the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea by Syria and Israel. I look up fruits grown in the region: olives, almonds, figs, melons, peaches, plums, grapes, citrus, etc. No apples.

Just because it isn't grown in the region doesn't mean that they don't import it, so I went for it. It sounded good. This year's Great Pieathalon helped seal the deal for using this recipe even if apples are not commonly listed in association with the region. After all, Greg at Recipes4Rebels made reference to living on a small Greek Island, and he had no trouble sourcing the filling for his apple pie. So, let's get started.

At first, I felt kind of bad about boiling down a perfectly good apple and then throwing it away. Then I realized that it was July, and the old apples from last fall are perfect for this purpose. They are horrible for eating. I ended up using a pink lady apple because it was the cheapest variety at the store that day. When I cut this apple open, it had the little brown streaks that are common to old apples all through it. Let's see how it does in tea. Some sources say to grate the apple, others say slice thin. I'm not in the mood to pull out the food processor, so thin slices it is! Peel and slice your apple into a large sauce pan. Add 3 cups (750 ml) of water, a little sugar if desired, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 2 tsp of lemon juice.

A little note about cinnamon sticks. I really don't care about the aesthetics of my cinnamon sticks, I care about the price. At the regular grocery store you can pay $5-$6 for a small bottle of perfect looking cinnamon sticks. Or, you can go to the Indian grocery store, and pay $2.99 for a 7 oz bag of shaggy looking pieces of cinnamon bark that work just as well in recipes. I used a few more pieces thinking that they have a smaller surface area overall than those perfect looking cinnamon sticks.

Bring to a boil and simmer for 6 minutes. Well, set the timer for 6 minutes, start doing something else, and plan to get to the simmering pot within the next few minutes after the timer goes off. It simmered maybe 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Then I rinsed 2 tsp of green tea (I used "China green" loose leaf tea), and added. The recipes I looked at said to steep 10-15 minutes. That seemed a bit long to me, so I went for 6-8 minutes. Again, set the timer for 5 minutes, and figure out how you are going to strain the stuff, and how you want to frame your finished tea shot. So the tea got strained (in the big strainer, the little tea strainer isn't going to work for this one!), and ladled into a glass.

I put the bowl of sugar in the shot because I didn't add any sugar while I was making it, and thought it would help flesh out the picture a bit. I didn't think it needed any. The color reminded me of the juice with canned pears. How did it taste? I really didn't notice the green tea, but it was good. It was like drinking a cup of apple pie. My grandfather would approve (especially if you chilled it, and made it into an ice cream float). His favorite answer for the question of what is for dessert was, "apple pie and ice cream".

How much would he like it?

I don't know. Maybe not as much as the chardonnay (or his lovely bride's reaction to her first taste of chardonnay). Grandma is still alive, and she would kill me if she found out that I put a picture of the look on her face when she tried it. That would teach her for making smart mouthed comments in the presence of her oldest grandchild - especially the only one who was going to be 21 before Christmas. 

In the future, I would use a little less cinnamon, and I really think that ginger and cloves would be a nice addition - maybe even a sprinkle of salt which helps the flavor of sweet desserts.