A Pinch Of Salt Is The Key To Balancing Out Bitter Tea
There are countless benefits to drinking tea. Some teas promote relaxation, others give you a gentle caffeine boost, and some countries, such as Turkey, drink tea as a part of their culinary culture. With all these benefits, incorporating more tea into your diet feels like a no-brainer, but for some people, the herbal, earthiness of tea comes across as a strong bitter flavor that turns them off from the beverage. If you've been wanting to become a tea drinker, but the bitterness scares you away, a pinch of salt might fix your flavor problems.
You may have heard of the concept of balancing flavors in cooking. It's why a simple addition of salt sweetens your chocolate chip cookies. Using contrasting flavors can round out the taste of your food and drinks. Salt tames the bitterness by blocking your taste receptors that make tea bitter. It's similar to adding sugar to your tea, but instead of masking the flavor, salt blocks it. By doing this, you still taste the natural flavor of the herbs and plants used to make your tea blend, minus the bitter sensation. Don't worry about being able to taste the salt. You use such a minimal amount that it's practically undetectable.
How to add salt to your tea for balance
You don't need to use a special kind of salt to get the benefit of salt in your tea. Whatever salt you have in your kitchen will work, so no need to worry about the difference between sea salt and table salt for this hack. The key to adding it to your tea is to only use a pinch. You're looking for less than a teaspoon of salt. A golden rule in the kitchen is that you can always add more of an ingredient, but if you add too much, you risk ruining your dish. Taste your tea after adding a small amount of salt to see if it needs more.
When thinking of what teas would taste better with a pinch of salt, you'll want to use this hack on teas like green teas and yellow teas that can run the risk of being bitter if brewed improperly. You can also consider teas that have bitter herbs like mint, chamomile, and wormwood. After adding a pinch of salt, you're welcome to add sweeteners like honey or sugar to flavor the tea to your liking. Once you've added salt, the sweeteners do their job better and won't clash with the bitterness.