Discover Amazing Flavor Combinations by Pairing Tea with Cheese

When it comes to pairings, cheese and tea couple up just as beautifully as cheese and wine. Their profiles are similar—both offer complexities in flavor, balance, and mouthfeel. Black teas, like red wines, offer ample amounts of the dryness that tannins bring, while lighter teas, like lighter wines, spotlight flavors like grassiness, lighter fruits, and herbal notes. There’s one more flavor profile to consider with tea, though, and that’s oxidation. As enzymes in the tea leaf mix with oxygen, the taste of the tea changes, becoming more complex. Less oxidized teas, like white and green teas, offer lighter flavors and aromas, while fully oxidized black teas will be more tannic, malty, and more fruity in big, juicy ways. 

While tea makes the perfect non-alcoholic pairing with cheese or even your next charcuterie board, all of the choices can become overwhelming. So we turned to Dominick DiBartolomeo, owner of The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills (which is also on Instagram), for guidance on all things cheese and tea. He’s all about the oxidation factor, which is really a genius way to approach this pairing. 

“Green tea is less oxidized than black tea, so this makes for a lighter flavor profile,” DiBartolomeo says. “I like milder cheeses like young, fresh chevres, milder bries, and mild fresh robiola. You can even try a mild cheese like Etorki or Istara from the Basque region.” The grassy notes in green tea can sometimes be described as bitter (in a good way), so a light, creamy cheese with a bit of tang is just the thing. But what cheeses should you pair with other types of tea?

Let’s crank up the intensity, (or “intensitea”) and move the needle to the other end of the oxidation spectrum. That’s where we’ll find black teas, with their deep, malty flavors that can also taste smoky, fruity, or earthy, or a seductive combination of all three. You can even spice up basic black tea to make it taste as fierce as you like. Mega-watt-intensity cheeses are perfect here, and by that, we mean cheeses with zip, zing, and lots of personality.

“Black tea is comparable to a heavy red wine that is more oxidized than green tea,” DiBartolomeo says. “I like stronger cheeses with character — like a funky camembert, Pont L’eveque, and even goudas. You can even try some milder blue cheeses as well, like young Fourme d’Ambert.”

DiBartolomeo offers many directions to take here, and that’s the beauty of this pairing. You may be wondering how camembert and Pont L’eveque stack up to goudas and blue cheeses since they all taste different. Camembert and Pont L’eveque are both creamy with soft rinds and offer prominence of flavor. Both are pungent in mushroomy, earthy ways. With this pairing, it’s about distinct bouquets of umami and sweetness to cut through those tannins. Goudas, especially aged ones, are rich in all the best buttery ways, and in the case of Pont L’eveque, this blue cheese is sharp, sure, but it’s also buttery and rich enough to tumble with those dry tannins in the best way. 

The family of soothing and refreshing herbal teas encompasses the gentle sweetness of chamomile and the minty floral bouquet of lavender. These teas couple well with cheeses that can spotlight those herbaceous notes. “I like pairing herbal teas with milder cheeses,” DiBartolomeo says. “Creamy ricotta, mild, young goat’s milk cheeses, and even young pecorino or triple creme bries. The milder cheeses tend to accentuate the herbs — which I really love.”

Any herb can be steeped and made into a tea — and this goes for roots, too, like ginger and ginseng. Flowers like hibiscus and shrubs like rooibos make fantastic teas. Consider their individual flavors though. Rooibos is earthy and sweet, so it could take on the same cheeses that pair well with green tea, like any of the nine brie cheeses you can find at the grocery store. Hibiscus tea is bright and tart in a way that’s more tannic than it is acidic. So go for as many mild but buttery top French cheeses to try at least once, amour. It’s just the thing to mellow the tartness of the tea while allowing its bright flavor to shine through.

For fruity teas with hints of spice, like zesty orange with clove, or teas that are just plain fruity, salt is the key. This is especially true for those seasonal fruity teas with big, bright flavors like peach or strawberry. “I like pairing fruity tea with salty, milder cheeses like Brillat Savarin,” DiBartolomeo says. The creaminess and saltiness allow the fruitiness of the tea to shine.” Creamier isn’t necessarily better in this case, so if you like a harder cheese that’s salty, try gruyere or Parmigiano Reggiano. Fruits are acidic, so the salt also works to amplify their flavors, drawing them out in layers.

Floral teas, like jasmine and rose, also benefit from triple cream cheeses like Brillat Savarin, brie, and camembert. But this isn’t true with a spicy chai, whether it’s masala, Irani chai, Nepali chiya, or chawa (Afghan sheer chai) with its various blends of Assam black tea, green cardamom, saffron, star anise, ginger, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, fennel, and black pepper. This spicy, complex blend of herbs, spices, and tea is a true masterclass in pairing, but don’t let all of the ingredients fool you. Pairing chai with mild, salty, hard cheeses like cheddar or gruyere is the end game; even better if you add fruits like apples, pears, and grapes to the mix for a full-on tea and cheese experience and perhaps (girl) dinner.