Tealicious recipes

All tea lovers know it: the range of tastes and flavours of tea is extraordinary. Enjoying your favorite brew with the right food, and trying unusual and new pairings, opens new doors for your taste buds. Good news: tea isn't just for your afternoon break or breakfast! While tea has always been on the dinner table outside the Western hemisphere, tea and food pairing has become a growing trend in the wake of a push for health conscious beverages.

Through a new collaboration with tea sommelier and food pairing specialist Mariëlla Erkens, IKKYU is excited to bring you delicious and healthy recipes to prepare at home, using staple ingredients.

Mariëlla is the author of a fabulous book that we absolutely love: "Tea: Wine’s Sober Sibling", published in Dutch in 2019 and in English in December 2021 in several digital formats. We are delighted to showcase here a selection of her published recipes, matched with IKKYU teas.

Mariëlla Erkens is a tea connoisseur and educator, and a food pairing specialist living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She was the owner and head chef of Eden, a restaurant in the fishing village of Itacaré, Brazil, from 2003 to 2008, where she served contemporary dishes with seafood and vegetarian food.
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After working as a freelance chef and food stylist in Amsterdam, Mariëlla discovered the beautiful world of specialty tea and did a three year course to become a certified tea sommelier. She has been teaching about tea since 2011 and is specialised in tea and food-, tea and specialty chocolate- and tea and cheese pairing.

Apart from that she developed a very efficient and carefree system to prepare delicious tea without a fuss for the hospitality industry, which is also very practical to use at home on busy days. She explains this system and much more in her book.