What you’ll learn:

• What Chinese Tea Eggs symbolize
• How to gently crack the eggshell and still keep it intact
• How to create intricate marble designs on the egg
• How to create the perfect Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs

I know it’s a bit early to start thinking about Chinese New Year, but I wanted to start a week ahead and post several recipes that would make perfect dishes for the upcoming Chinese New Year, such as this Chinese Marbled Tea Egg recipe.

Isn’t the shell of the Tea Egg absolutely gorgeous? The best part (other than eating) is to peel back the egg shell to see what kind of marbled design you end up with!

We generally eat these at room temperature or just slightly warm. In Northern China, Chinese Tea Eggs symbolize golden nuggets for the Chinese New Year feast – so if you’re lookin’ for a little more prosperity this coming year of the Ox update: it’s the Year of the Tiger this year! my Mama says you’d better make this recipe!

My friend Diana, author of Appetite For China recently was vacationing here in Tampa, Florida and I got to meet her! (yeah – we got a pic together too! at the end of the post.) She includes dried orange peel in her recipe and I’m sure she’ll be enjoying Chinese Tea Eggs with her parents in China.

For Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs, you’ll want to hard boil eggs first, and after they cool off, use a back of a teaspoon to gently crack the eggshell all over. Keep the eggshell intact, but the more you crack, the more intricate the design of the marble will be. Make those crack pretty deep, as that is how the tea/soy mixture will seep into the egg.

I was gentle at first, but after seeing that the eggshell stayed intact, I cracked the next egg a bit harder…and what a difference that made!