Top Chef ™
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What is Soba Cha?
Soba Cha (also known as Soba-Cha and Sobacha) is Japanese buckwheat tea. It is drunk hot or cold, and is gluten-free and caffeine-free and apparently tastes nutty and slightly sweet.
It appeared three times in Top Chef: Wisconsin ™. The first showing was in Restaurant Wars when Danny's team, under his leadership, served up cold Soba Cha as a welcome drink. It wasn't well received.
In reparation, Danny re-introduced it in week 12 when he infused mushrooms into Soba Cha for his fish dish. This time, the judges regretted that he had buried the flavor of the buckwheat tea in very powerful mushroom flavors and would have preferred the essence of the tea to shine through.
Danny didn't try again, but Dan used Soba Cha in his Smoked Dashi and this time it went down a storm.
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About Top Chef ™
Top Chef ™ is an American reality competition television series which has run since March 2006. The show features professional chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges.
The Top Chef ™ chef-contestants are judged by a counsel of exemplary, world-renowned professional chefs and famous names from the food and wine industry.
The contestants are superb, professional chefs with a huge array of global food skills.
The show is progressive, eliminating one or two chefs each week. Each episode follows a consistent theme with (usually) a Quickfire challenge (short and fun) followed by a more difficult "Elimination Challenge" that is much more intense. The Top Chef ™ Judges Table is where the winners and losers are determined each week.
