How To Use Tea in Sourdough Bread

Have you ever thought about how to use tea in sourdough bread? Perhaps you're an avid tea drinker and you'd like to add tea to homemade sourdough bread.

There are many ways adding tea to sourdough bread can elevate the flavor, texture and crumb.

This blog will show you how to use tea in sourdough bread as well as some different tea flavors you could try in your dough.

Get ready for an aromatic bread adventure!

How To Add Tea To Sourdough Bread

Adding tea to sourdough bread is fairly simple.

You just need to steep the tea following the directions on the box and then instead of adding plain water to your dough, add the tea steeped water.

You can swap the water amount like for like. For example if you were making Earl Gray Tea, you would add 350g of Earl Grey Tea instead of 350g of water (based on my simple sourdough recipe).

It can be beneficial to brew the tea for a little longer than instructed to make it taste stronger. This is because once baked, the flavor of the tea in the bread will be quite subtle.

Adding a stronger tea to sourdough can help to ensure that the aromatic flavors remain once baked.

What Type of Tea Can You Add To Sourdough?

You can really add any type of tea to sourdough. Think about they type of tea you like to drink.

When considering the type of tea to add to sourdough bread, you need to consider the herbs and flavors contained within, as well as the aromatic spices.

Some good flavored teas to add to sourdough include:

Chai Spiced Tea
Earl Grey Tea
Green Tea
Matcha Tea
Butterfly Pea Tea
Black Tea
Fruit Tea (lemon, orange, raspberry - any of these work really well)

You would generally add tea with no milk, however for something a little more interesting, you could also try adding milky tea to your sourdough. This works really nicely with Earl Grey Tea in particular.

The added fat in the milk will also soften the crust of your sourdough.

Does Adding Tea To Sourdough Bread Affect Fermentation?

Adding tea to sourdough bread will not affect the fermentation in a negative way.

The only caveat here is if you are using a tea with a large amount of cinnamon. Cinnamon is known to have a negative effect on fermentation in that it can reduce the effectiveness of the yeast and bacteria in your starter.

Other types of tea should not have any effect on fermentation.

As a side note - caffeine can affect yeast growth, however, the amount of caffeine in the tea you're adding should not have any significant effect, unlike using coffee in your sourdough.

Effect of Tea on Sourdough Bread

Adding tea to your sourdough bread should not have any significant effect on the gluten development of your dough.

If you are just swapping the plain water out for tea, it similarly would not have any effect on the crust or crumb of your final bake.

Using a milky tea may have some effect on the crumb in that the fat in the milk will make the crumb a little tighter and the crust a little softer.

Sourdough Flavor Combinations That Work with Tea

If you are needing some inspiration for using tea alongside other ingredients in sourdough bread, here are some ideas:

Earl Grey Tea

Add Earl Grey Tea instead of plain water and add any of the following ingredients during stretch and folds (up to 200g total weight of add ins):

chopped, dried apricots.
raisins.
chopped, dried figs.
chopped walnuts

Try adding Earl Grey Tea to this

Chai Spiced Tea

Add Chai Spiced Tea instead of plain water and add any of the following ingredients during stretch and folds (up to 200g total weight of add ins):

chopped walnuts
dark chocolate chips
honey (no more than 40g) - read more about adding honey to sourdough.
chopped hazelnuts

You could try adding chai spiced tea to this Sourdough Fruit Loaf.

Green Tea

Add Green Tea instead of plain water and add any of the following ingredients during stretch and folds (up to 200g total weight of add ins):

chopped walnuts
candied orange peel
honey (no more than 40g) - read more about adding honey to sourdough.
black sesame seeds