Chinese Tea Eggs [Sponsored Post]

These flavorful marbled Chinese tea eggs are infused with spices like cinnamon and star anise. They are a super easy snack to make and look beautiful once you peel them. (Jump directly to the recipe.)

This post was sponsored by Safeway. I was compensated for this post and for developing the recipe. However, all opinions below are completely my own.

As someone who develops recipes, I often pay a lot of attention to the measurements of each ingredient. It took me awhile to get there, as I used to be one of those intuitive cooks, throwing things in left and right and tasting as I went. Once I started this blog I found that I need to pay a little more attention to whether or not it was 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon of salt that I added to that dish. I forget that not everyone is like that though, so when I asked my mom for her recipe for Chinese Tea Eggs, she texted me back a recipe that included vague measurements like “some cinnamon” and “2 tablespoons or more” of soy sauce and ending with “I adjust my recipe every time so it’s not a perfect one.” Ha! My mom is the best.

Of course, she’s been making her Chinese Tea Eggs for about 50 years now, so I trust her and her taste. These eggs are super popular in Taiwan, and can be found all over the place. You basically boil the egg first, then crack the shell and let it sit in the marinade overnight. The cracked egg shell allows the marinade to permeate and create a gorgeous pattern on the white of the egg. I’ve been wanting to make these eggs for a while with the New Year here because they’re also a super healthy snack for when AJ is hungry which is basically because he cycles a mad crazy amount. Plus Chinese New Year is just around the corner so these totally do double duty as well!

I’m double happy to be making these with Safeway’s O Organics® ingredients, like their eggs, sugar and teas because they’re organic, reasonably priced and make this recipe simple to prepare. These products are available in my area exclusively at Safeway stores. I used a combination of the O Organics black tea and chai spice tea which already had a blend of spices like ginger, cardamom, star anise and cinnamon in it. Because of this, I don’t even have to use any special spices, I can just throw the tea bags in the marinade! I adore how convenient Safeway is to me, especially since it’s open 24 hours, which means I can run there late at night or early in the morning when there’s a grocery emergency. Which, in my household, happens way more often than it should. I buy my O Organics products at Safeway but you might find them at your own local Albertsons company stores like Albertsons, ACME Markets, Jewel-Osco, Vons, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Shaw’s, Star Market, United Express, United and Carrs/Safeway. Bounce on over to Safeway.com to find the closest store to you!

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5 from 2 votes

Chinese Tea Eggs

These hard-boiled tea eggs are first cooked, then cracked, and cooked again to let the tea marinade penetrate the shell and stain the egg. Once you peel them, you’ll find the egg beautifully marbled and flavored. O Organics Chai Spice Organic Tea is an easy shortcut with spices in it that help make the eggs more complex in flavor. But if you only want to use the O Organics Black Tea, add 2 cinnamon sticks and 2 star anise pieces to the marinade. Use more tea bags if you want a stronger flavor in your eggs or less tea bags if you want them more subtle.

Course Snack

Cuisine Chinese

Prep Time 4 minutes minutes

Cook Time 16 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 6 eggs

Calories 80kcal

Author Irvin

Ingredients

• 6 large O Organics eggs
• 1/4 cup Safeway Signature soy sauce
• 1 strip of orange zest optional
• 2 to 3 bags of O Organics black tea
• 2 to 3 bags of O Organics Chai Spice organic tea see headnote above
• 1 tablespoon O Organics white granulated sugar
• 3 cups water

Instructions

• Pour about 1-inch of water into a medium-sized pan and bring to a boil. Place the eggs (cold from the refrigerator) into a steamer basket. Once the water is boiling, carefully move the steamer basket with the eggs into the pan and cover. Steam for 6 minutes. Move the eggs to a bowl filled with ice water to shock them from cooking.
• Once the eggs are cooling in the ice bath, place the soy sauce, orange zest, tea bags, sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Once the marinade is boiling, lower the heat to a simmer, then take an egg out of the ice bath and crack it all over with the back of a spoon. Place the egg in the simmering marinade and repeat with the remaining eggs.
• Once all the eggs are in the marinade, cover the pan and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat with the cover still on and let the pan cool completely to room temperature. Move to the refrigerator (still with the cover on) and let sit overnight before eating.

Notes

Recipe can be doubled.

Nutrition

Calories: 80kcal