Annelies Zijderveld was working in marketing for California-based Mighty Leaf Tea Co. when she realized that tea was much more than a beverage.

One afternoon, while working on a description for a shade-grown Japanese green tea called Gyokuro, Zijderveld pinched a few of the dry, blue green leaves between her fingers and popped them into her mouth.

“It was so unbelievably nutty,” says Zijderveld, who decided to bake the tea into butter cookies.

After spinning the leaves through a spice grinder, Zijderveld folded the flecks of tea into cookie dough. The tea-infused treats were a hit, so Zijderveld continued her experiments.

“I became obsessed with pushing the boundaries of how tea could be used in new ways,” says Zijderveld, the author of a new cookbook called “Steeped: Recipes Infused With Tea.”

The book features more than 60 plant-based recipes that include brewed tea or tea leaves as ingredients. Standouts include masala chai pumpkin bread, Earl Grey soba noodle salad and camomile risotto.

“Each tea brings its own personality to a dish,” Zijderveld says.

People have been cooking with tea for as long as they’ve been drinking it — around 5,000 years — but the popularity of tea-infused recipes will likely grow along with the country’s thirst for the beverage.

Last year Americans consumed more than 80 billion servings of tea, according to the Tea Association of the U.S.A., and tea sales are expected to double in the next five years.

In Kansas City, Mo., Tea Market owner Stacie Robertson recommends swapping tea for water when cooking rice or couscous. She likes jasmine tea with basmati rice and chai — a blend of black tea, Indian spices and herbs — with couscous.

“It’s also fun to make a spice rub with tea,” Robertson says.

She adds Lapsang souchong, a Chinese tea dried over smoldering wood, to add smoky flavor to salmon.

Lapsang souchong is the star of several recipes in “Steeped” and Zijderveld calls Lapsang souchong a “campfire in a cup.”

“A little goes a long way,” she says.

Wes Gartner, chef/owner at Voltaire in Kansas City’s West Bottoms, has been known to smoke Chinese black tea to flavor ribs in the summer. The smoldering tea leaves infuse herbaceous flavor into the ribs that’s “much more subtle than wood smoke,” Gartner says.

Not all tea works well in recipes: Zijderveld says white and oolong tea are best for drinking, because their subtle flavors are easily overshadowed by other ingredients.

The recipes in “Steeped” are all about harmony: Camomile’s floral, honey notes amp up the sweetness of corn chowder, Earl Grey’s citrus kick lightens up creamy chocolate custard, and green tea aioli adds bright flavor (and a stripe of vivid green color) to hearty black bean burgers.

“Tea is not a diva,” Zijderveld says. “It’s part of the chorus.”