A sip of joy-Yum Cha !

December 6, 2013

By Susmita Saha

Photograph by Jagan Negi

Enjoy an array of specialty tea and lipsmacking dimsums to go along, at the Yum Cha Festival, at The Claridges in Delhi

A sip of joy

Sure it’s a tea, but it’s one that may put champagne to shame. It’s priced over Rs 1 lakh per kilo and goes by the name of Da Hong Pao. To take a sip of this prized concoction, head to The Claridges in Delhi where the Yum Cha (tea drinking ceremony) Festival has been on since November 7. One of the few dedicated tea and dimsum festivals in Delhi, Yum Cha offers more than 11 varieties of the beverage, including Lapsang Souchong, Long Jin, Houjicha, Yunnan Red and Bai Mudan. A mix of white, oolong and black, the hotel’s tea inventory also boasts varieties that are therapeutic, floral or fruit flavoured and intensely fragrant. For instance, the Yunnan Red Tea or Dian Hong is often fermented with fruits like lychee and longan and releases golden-orange liquor when brewed.

Yum Cha teams these delicate brews with Cantonese small eats that straddle different food groups like pork, poultry, beef, seafood and vegetables. Mild-flavoured teas like Long Jin are ideally paired with dishes like steamed scallop and asparagus dumplings or mini prawn chang fen (prawn filling in long intestine-shaped casing). Says executive chef Neeraj Tyagi, “Indians are now taking to tea (the no milk-no sugar avatar) in a big way owing to its health benefits. So we decided to host Yum Cha to give Delhiites the best mix of tea and dumplings.”

Source- http://www.telegraphindia.com