Green Tea Bread: A No-Knead Semi-Sour Dough

I enjoy both green tea and bread. So I combined them. I looked up recipes, but they all called for matcha (green tea powder). All I had were tea bags. This was my third attempt at no-knead bread.

3 cups flour
1.5 cups water
week-old yeast starter made from homebrewed mead (Lalvin D-47)
1/2 tbsp salt
Dry contents of 5 tea bags

This fermented for 20 hours with the tea leaves mixed in, then was shaped and proofed on an oiled + breadcrumbed (I have no corn meal) pan and allowed to rise for 4 more hours. This long ferment is required because I am using wine yeast, which doesn't produce as much rapid carbon dioxide. If you are using regular yeast, you can shorten your primary ferment to 18 hours and proof for 2.

I figured that I shouldn't brew the tea first because it will "steep" at room temperature over the course of the 24 hours and because it will be baked, steaming the tea within the bread.


Next, because this is a green tea bread and because I was feeling artistic, I made cuts on the top with a razor blade. They are supposed to be tea leaves.


I baked with a pan of water at the bottom at 430*F. I used a spray bottle to mist the surface of the loaf about ever 5-7 minutes. This may have been overkill, but I am still learning.

I ended up baking for an hour. The crust ended up a bit too thick. I should have baked for 45 minutes. The inside was still very moist. And the green tea aroma was trapped by the crust, so the bread smelled very nicely of green tea!

And here is the finished bread! I call it a semi-sour dough because I used a yeast starter (made from mead). And since the starter was a week old, the sourness is starting to develop, but it will probably get more developed over time :)