For those of us who drink tea on a daily basis, it's only natural to find complimentary teas for the different things we eat as a matter of course. Not every meal however is going to be Asian fusion cuisine or some fine dining dish worthy of a high quality tea to match. Like every other single American, sometimes I need a tea that will go with something as basic as a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. (a stronger straight black tea such as an English Breakfast or even Lapsang does the trick for me!)It wasn't too long ago that this same trend, pairing an upscale drink with low-grade food, hit the wine scene. Despite the connoisseur status of knowledge one might have about wine, the question still echoed, but does it go with pizza? What first either bemused or possible ruffled the educated wine drinker, the concept of "but does it go with pizza?", has now become a marketing tactic. Even the NYTimes is not beneath reporting the finer points of wine and pizza choices.
So when a discussion of junk food cravings turned into a plan to get together after a friend of mine joked, "I'll bring the Doritos if you bring the tea", I knew that I would be exploring a new aspect of tea pairings never researched before. What tea goes with not only Doritos, but SPICY DORITOS. Apparently this stuff comes in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Degree Burning Spice Flavors -- and apparently Pepsi came out with a limited time cross-promotional soda called Cease Fire -- to "cool the burn" left by these fiery hot chips!
So what tea goes with chips so spicy you really only need to 'eat just one'?
What I came up with was a sweet & spicy black tea. Prior to eating the chips, there was a natural sweetness with an underlying warmth to the strong black tea base. But as you ate the 1st or 2nd Degree Doritos, I think the tea actually intensified the spice! Really, it was difficult to tell the affect of the tea or anything afterward, due to the long-lingering tingling of fire that coated the inside of my mouth.
If you ask my friend Steve, I don't think he'd claim that the mad blend that I created is a remedy to or partner with Doritos (spicy or otherwise) -- but it did spawn a rather enjoyable excuse to get together and drink tea!
Perhaps this calls for more field research and a government grant?....and more tea parties!
3 comments:
Ahahaha .... I like your thinking !! Grants to pair teas with our more everyday, low cost(?) foods. But seriously, I would think that any tea that you use milk or cream in should work just fine in this case. The heat in doritos comes from cayenne pepper .... the offending chemical being capcasin (sp). The only thing that works well to cool capcasin is milk or cream.
wow Kathy - that's well thought out. Seeing as the blend I made was black tea based, one could choose to add milk for a cooling effect! I'll add that as part 2 of my gov't funded research grant proposal!
Drinking anything with spicy food just spreads it around. My Indian friends, who eat fire say that ultra sweet stuff cools it and the one time I consciously tried it, it was so. You're on the right track!
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