Although many celebrate the new year. Not many come close to the beautiful celebration of Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival.  Chinese marbled tea eggs are a tradition during the Chinese New Year. According to an article on steamykitchen.com these eggs symbolize golden nuggets for the Chinese New Year feast. Not only is the marbled egg neat, the shell is also amazing with a spider web of cracks.

We are a little late for the Chinese New Year but we decided to try the eggs. We used Ceylon black tea, ground star anise, and dried orange peel for the recipe below. After steeping about 5 hours the flavors had seeped into the egg white and yolk and gave it a distinct flavor. We had the option to leave them overnight, which would have given them a stronger taste, but were too interested to see how they would turn out!

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 star anise
• 2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon sugar

*1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn

*2 strips dried tangerine or mandarin orange peel

Directions

1. Gently place the eggs in a medium pot and fill with water to cover the eggs by 1-inch. Bring the pot to a boil, lower the heat and let simmer for 3 minutes.
2. Remove the eggs (leaving the water in the pot) and let cool under running cool water.
3. Using the back of the teaspoon, gently tap the eggshell to crack the shell all over. The more you tap, the more intricate the design. Do this with a delicate hand to keep the shell intact.
4. To the same pot with the boiling water, return the eggs and add in the remaining ingredients.
5. Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately turn the heat to low. Simmer for 40 minutes, cover with lid and let eggs steep for a few hours to overnight.

*The longer you steep, the more flavorful and deeply marbled the tea eggs will be.

Recipe Link: https://steamykitchen.com/2147-chinese-tea-eggs-recipe.html