As I have said before, I have to throw high quality tealeaves away. In my
eternal quest for the usage of used tealeaves (see "New, unique (guaranteed)
experience" thread) I found yet another application. Cooking!
A while ago I saw a recipe of a Chinese soup with puerh and thought - why
not try to use it as a marinade? Believe it or not, used green puerh leaves
do wonders when used to marinade chicken and seafood (I have yet to try meat
and I am not so sure). But both fish and chicken after soaking or several
hours in old green puerh (I have not tried black yet) get tenderness,
texture and flavor that is totally exquisite!
To prepare the marinade I boiled some old green puerh leaves for several
minutes, cooled the "tea" and poured it all over the fish together with
leaves themselves. Then I made sure that leaves are evenly distributed
between fish fillets and several hours later I poured the puerh out and
cooked the fish (on skillet) allowing puerh leaves to cling to the fish. The
taste is not at all "jumpy" or even "teaish". It has very fine gamma of
undertones that I would never expect from tea at all. I did some cooking
with black tea years ago and it was OK, but expectedly "teaish" and quite
plain. The green puerh cooking is by far more interesting. You have got to
try it!
Chicken was done the same way - my wife and daughter ate it all (which never
happened before) and told me that from now on NEVER to cook chicken any
other way.
I also tried prawns and that was beyond words!

My next candidates: scallops and I also want to try some shellfish.

Sasha.