Tea-Smoked Country Style Pork Ribs

This is a style of smoking that hails from China’s Sichuan (formerly Szechuan) region, which is known for its hot, spicy cuisine. Serious Chinese food geeks may be familiar with Zhangcha duck—a tea-smoked Sichuan delicacy that’s tough to make but impressive as hell to anyone who’s never had it before. This is the recipe Mark Masker used for his rib experiment.  Read the entire article on the Burn! Blog here.

Ingredients

Rib Sauce
1/2 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dry crushed chile pods
3 pounds country-style pork ribs

Smoking Packet Mix:
1/2 cup black tea leaves (roughly 17 teabags for you infidels)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup raw, long grain rice
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into small pieces
4-6 slices of fresh orange rind, 1 inch wide and 2-3 inches long

Instructions

Mix up the rib sauce, coat the ribs, and let them soak inside the fridge for three to five hours.  Meanwhile, mix up the smoking mix and prep your smoker. Once the coals are ready, you hot-smoke the ribs until they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. (this will take roughly two or three hours).  I made four packets of smoking mix and changed them every half hour while brushing more sauce onto the ribs.