Tea Eggs

We have a group of friends that meet for pot lucks and seasonal celebrations and we always try to have a theme. Our latest was a lovely small gathering for the Chinese New Year.

I made a rather feeble attempt at Tea Eggs. These are beautiful hard boiled eggs soaked in black tea. The shells are cracked and the eggs soaked in the tea to create intricate spider web patterns on the boiled egg once the shells are removed.

I boiled 10 eggs in a large pot for 10 minutes. I cracked each egg by dropping it into a dish, rolling it around and crushing the shell without removing it. They went back into the pot with 2 large tea bags of black tea. I continued to let them simmer for another 20 minutes.

My results were a little faint at the end... I only had 6 hours from the time I originally boiled them to the time we removed the shells.

I was on my second egg when I realized that if you leave the delicate membrane on the egg as you peel off the shell the results were much more spectacular!