Mooncake & tea pairing for a healthy Mid

by Elaine Wong • 30 Aug 2023

As the Mid-Autumn Festival rolls around, you bet we’re excited for mooncakes! A popular festive indulgence, many brands offer creative takes on the traditional treat to honour the occasion. However, with rich fillings and buttery crusts, mooncakes can often be overpowering on their own – here’s where mooncake and tea pairings come into play. With the tips and selections from Chinese Tea Gallery, you can discover the ideal accompaniment for your mooncakes, allowing you to enjoy them in their full glory.

Before we dive into how you can craft your own mooncake and tea pairing, you might be wondering why tea is the best complement to mooncakes. Well, while mooncakes are undeniably tasty, they aren’t exactly healthy. In fact, one standard mooncake supposedly packs the caloric equivalent of three to four bowls of white rice! So, when you’re looking to pair mooncakes with something that enhances their flavour while keeping the calories down, tea makes the smartest choice.

Moreover, sugary beverages such as wine, coffee, juice, and soda are often too strong in flavour as a pairing to mooncakes. Tea, on the other hand, brings out the sweetness of mooncakes without overpowering them, with its nuanced yet vibrant flavours. Also, the quality brews from Chinese Tea Gallery are well balanced, enabling you to savour the harmonious blend of textures and flavours with each sip. Last but not least, tea is light, refreshing, and aids digestion, thereby helping to wash down the richness of mooncakes.

The best thing about tea is that there are always plenty of flavour combinations to choose from. So, no matter what type of mooncake you’re having, there’s bound to be a tea that hits the spot. With almost 30 flavours for you to take your pick, Chinese Tea Gallery offers a great selection of premium teas – even the quirkiest mooncake will find its match! Here are some mooncake and tea pairings you can experiment with, as recommended by the experts at Chinese Tea Gallery:

If you have mooncakes that contain luscious fillings such as assorted nuts, or double egg yolk with lotus seed paste, the best teas to pair with them would be pu’er and buckwheat tea. Chinese Tea Gallery’s Chenpi Pu’Er and Hong Kong Pu’Er give earthy aromas with a long-lasting aftertaste; whereas the Golden Buckwheat is robust and nutty. These teas can help relieve the richness of the buttery pastries, without taking over its flavours.

If you have intensely sweet mooncakes on hand – think lava custard, ice-cream, chocolate, sweet potato, or red bean – black tea, oolong tea, and fruity tea would make the ideal pairing. The Royal Cinnamon, for instance, is a complex black tea that counters the sweetness with its mix of spicy and citrus flavours, as well as a smoky and savoury aftertaste. Number 12 complements sweet treats with a creamy and milky scent; whereas Paris Roselle adds a tangy edge with the fragrances of lemon and hibiscus.

Finally, to pair with mooncakes that contain lightly sweet fillings such as matcha, mango, strawberry, and mung bean, scented tea and green tea are your best bet. For example, the Lychee Rose can enhance mooncakes with its mellow floral aroma and fruity notes. In a slightly different vein, the Shizuoka Kukicha carries a marine scent, somewhat reminiscent of seaweed. Its crisp and refreshing flavour helps round off the mooncake tasting experience.

Since mooncakes often come in four in a box, Chinese Tea Gallery makes shopping for tea pairings easier by offering a seasonal “Blend your Own Tea-riffic Gift Set”, with which you can pick four tea tins to suit your four pieces of mooncake. Simply add your preferred teas to the cart, then add $1 for a gift box during checkout. Voila!

Ready to try your next mooncake and tea pairing? Order your tea from Chinese Tea Gallery today and you can receive your items within three business days. Make sure to take advantage of the limited-time deal to save more, too: buying four tins will save you $40; buying eight will save you $80; and so on. Those purchasing 40 tins can even save $400 – perfect for gifting. And that’s not all: you can enjoy free delivery upon spending $350. Happy Mooncake Festival!

Shop Chinese Tea Gallery online.

Physical store: Room A, 6/F, Yam Hop Hing Industrial Building, 40-44 Kwai Wing Road, Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, p. 2816 2659

This post is in partnership with Chinese Tea Gallery.