Forget
finger sandwiches—the best thing to have with your cup of tea is a hunk of
cheese! I had heard of pairing coffee with cheese (ever since Artisanal teamed
up with Starbucks to bring you mini cheese platters with your Mochaccino) so I
guess it should have occurred to me that tea and cheese would go equally well
together. But it didn’t cross my mind until Waldemar and I met a lovely lady,
Dolores Snyder, at an event we did at Telepan.
Dolores is
a tea authority and no doubt she rules the tea circuit in her hometown of
Dallas, Texas. But she also happens to be a cheese lover and a collector of Victorian
cheese keepers (which is just about the coolest collection I have ever heard
of). Dolores teaches about tea all around the country, and is a big fan of
pairing it with cheese. But I was so enamored with the vision of these
Victorian cheese keepers that I forgot to ask Dolores what her favorite cheese
and tea pairing was.
So, here
are my thoughts instead: If you sweeten your tea, you would do well to nibble
on a saltier cheese, like aged cheddar. Herbal teas are probably fabulous with
fresh goat’s milk cheeses, and Earl Grey is probably fabulous with everything.
If you were drinking a very tannic black tea, I would avoid very lactic cheeses
like a triple-crème. And any mint or peppermint tea is probably pretty gross
with cheese, unless the mint component is a background flavor.
Dolores,
if you are reading this, please post advice for us cheese and tea novices!
