Savoring the Experience:

This versatile tea is perfect for a tea party as much as it is a bachelor's party. Whether you pair it with smoked salmon finger sandwiches at afternoon tea or with grilled steaks, whisky, and cigars on a late night, it smokes the competition. It's also great with breakfast foods, spicy Thai dishes with coconut-based sauces, lamb dishes, or with a little Manchego.

Ingredients:

Smoked Chinese Black Tea

Fun Facts:

Legend has it that Lapsang Souchong was created by accident.

While war waged across the remote countryside of China, a tea producer had just finished harvesting a new batch of leaves. Just as he reached his small factory, eager to roll the leaves and dry them overnight, a band of bedraggled soldiers arrived and their leader commandeered the factory as sleeping quarters for the troops. The tea maker agreed, though he worried about how to dry the leaves before they went past their prime.

As the soldiers slept, he gathered as many wooden racks as he could find and rolled the leaves off to one side of the factory. As soon as the troops left in the morning, he spread the leaves over the racks. Lighting fires of pine boughs beneath each rack, he dried the leaves quickly, with the side effect of imparting the flavor of smoke and pine sap on them. To his amazement, the leaves were not ruined, but instead became some of the best tea he had ever tasted!