Tra vai holds the cool, fragrant scent of lychee over a deep black tea base. The tea is clear, the sweetness is light, and firm pieces of lychee sit at the bottom of the glass.
The hardest part is timing the steep, because going over turns the tea bitter and cloudy. A pinch of salt added right after the tea bag is squeezed rounds the flavour and takes the edge off. A common slip is brewing a whole batch and leaving it at room temperature, since the aroma fades fast, so it belongs in a sealed bottle in the refrigerator.
This batch weighs about 4.8kg, at roughly 3 calories per 100g.
Method
Cook the lychee jam: blend 176g of lychee flesh until smooth. Dry mix 2g of NH pectin with part of 36g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend. Warm the lychee to hand temperature, scatter in the pectin mixture, stir well, hold a gentle simmer for exactly 2 minutes, lower the heat and add the rest of the blend with a pinch of salt, take it off the heat to cool for 5 minutes and stir in 6ml of lime juice. This makes about 200g of jam, of which each glass uses 20ml, and the rest goes into a sealed jar in the refrigerator to be used within 2 weeks.
Put 50g of black tea into a cloth tea bag, set it in a brewing pot with 4 litres of boiling water, cover and steep for 20 minutes.
Lift the tea bag out, squeeze it dry, then stir in 7.5ml of salt until dissolved.
For a 500ml glass: pour in 130ml of brewed black tea base, add 20ml of lychee jam and 15 to 20ml of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend syrup, and stir well.
Add 2 preserved lychees cut into 4 pieces each to the glass, then top with ice.
For a batch of 30 glasses, stir 396g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend with 2.5ml of salt into the tea until dissolved and keep it refrigerated; to build a glass, take 140ml of the sweetened base plus 20ml of lychee jam and 3 to 4 preserved lychees.
Tips
Without NH pectin, a little xanthan gum works, and it thickens as it cools with stirring.
If the lychee jam comes out a little thin, stir it straight into the glass and the flavour still carries.
Pull the tea bag at exactly 20 minutes, because longer steeping turns the tea bitter.
A 700ml glass takes 150ml of brewed black tea base, 25ml of lychee jam and 20 to 25ml of syrup.
kOBE Monk Fruit Blend is a powder, so stirring it straight into warm tea is enough.
Decant the tea base into a sealed bottle, keep it cold and use it the same day for the best aroma.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.