Tea egg recipes?

Anyone out there with Chinese/Taiwanese moms?  I have a craving for the tea eggs a friend's mom used to make.  I've looked up some recipes, and have found most of the ingredients, but I think every family has their own recipe.

I'm going ahead with my eggs today... I'll let you know how it turned out!

Status report:

Boiled water,  tea bags, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and cloves (couldn't find star anise) with the eggs for 5 minutes.

Took the eggs out, smacked them thoroughly all over, put them back in.

Simmered for an hour.

Shelled the eggs.  The veining is great, but I want them to be very strong-tasting... so just put them back in the pot.  Maybe for an hour or two?

I've never heard if tea eggs before, do they taste of tea? How do you serve them? Hot? cold?

Hot or cold is OK.  They don't taste like tea, unless you use something strong like lapsang souchong (sp?), otherwise, the tea is mostly for colour.

They're a snack item, really.  Popular in China and Taiwan.  They make something similar in Japan, but the eggs have no taste at all.  (Oden item.) 

My experiment may be a failure... but my friend's mom made the most amazing tea eggs ever.  Hers were also shelled, and she used a bit of oil on them.  Maybe sesame oil... I'll give that a go later.  She never would give me the recipe...

mmmm... tea eggs!
I had forgotten how much I love them until you mentioned it - now I have to make my own batch 
I got my recipe from a Chinese co-worker which she wrote out step by step.  BUT, I have never got mine to taste as good as hers or to get past the veining to the real strong tasting kind.  She said I didn't crack them enough...
Anyway, her recipe says to let them soak in the tea/seasoning stuff overnight - after you boil it obviously. 
Hope that helps, let me know how yours turned out.

They taste great!  I lost the veining by soaking them overnight, but that's OK.  They're very strong now.  Unfortunately, they don't taste like the ones I want to make...

Dragonnfly, can you post the ingredients for your recipe?

Unfortunately she didn't list the ingredients because she didn't know the english words for them - she just put together a baggie with everything in it and referred to it in the recipe as the "seasoning". 
From what I can tell it has tea leaves (she gave me green tea but I've used black or oolong and it's just as good), dried red chillis, something that looks kind of like fennel, and star anise (that gives it the very distinctive almost liquorishy taste, I'm not sure what could replace it if you can't find it - maybe simply anise or aniseed which is different but tastes the same).   And soy sauce in the water of course (and she added extra salt, but I don't).  I don't notice any garlic or ginger but it might be mixed in as a powder. 
As many times as I asked for specifics, she never gave them so I can't pass them on.  She always simply said "oh you know, a handful/pinch/bit."  Frustrating when you want to know teaspoon by teaspoon what's in there!
Also, I don't know if the chilli peppers are normal - she was from Szechuan and put them in everything but I think they add a nice subtle spice.