Black Tea Panna Cotta

The inspiration of this dessert came from a garden lunch we had during our visit to Morocco. It was a British style meal with Moroccan influences and one of the desserts was milk tea with some petite cakes. After the trip, a friend of ours happened to bring us a box of very nice Chinese Black Tea called "Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong" and I actually never heard of that. When I looked it up, it turns out that it is a very popular tea exported to Europe, particularly favored by the British Royals. And I thought, this would be perfect to remake that dessert with a slight twist!

This is how the milk tea looked like during that lovely lunch.

If you don't have the same tea, any black tea should do. This is a great crowd-pleaser yet supper easy to make.

Heavy Cream 2 cups

Milk 2 cups

Black Tea Leaf ¼ cup

Dark Brown Sugar 1/2 cup

Gelatin 1 envelope

Sprinkle the gelatin over ¼ cup of cold milk to soften up, about 5 minutes. Add the cream and milk to a medium sauce pan. Add black tea leaf. Heat up on high heat until boil, then turn down the heat to low to keep it simmering for about 10 minutes. Add the brown sugar to the milk tea while it is still simmering and stir to allow fully resolve. Simmer for another 2 minutes. Finally, add in the gelatin mixture and stir again to fully incorporate.

Turn off the heat. Use a sieve to remove the tea leaf from the milk tea before portion it into small containers. Put in fridge for overnight before serving.

This is how mine turned out, very happy with the result!