Blind Oolong Tea Tasting with Evan, Brandon, and Others

I recently had the pleasure of attending a blind tea tasting, hosted by Evan Draper, who runs the not-so-active blog Pluck Tea. Incidentally, Brandon of Wrong Fu Cha also attended.

Pictured here is the setup at the very end of the tasting:

In addition to the tea, there were bowls of figs and concord grapes to snack on.

There were seven of us, and Evan proceeded to brew up 7 teas, each of which had been packaged with a mystery label that we opened after the fact. We drank four infusions of each tea. We each took note of all the teas while drinking them, and discussed them before revealing their identity. I took separate notes on each infusion.

I think this sort of setup is a great exercise, because it forces us to pay attention to the tea itself, without allowing us to bring preconceptions based on the tea's origin. We knew nothing about the brands or types of teas, although it was quickly evident that they were all oolongs. Evan used a gaiwan for brewing, rather than an Yixing teapot, which allowed for a purer experience of each tea, rather than having it be influenced by the seasoning of the pot.

Brewing for richness of experience instead of consistency:

One thing I liked about how Evan approached the brewing in this gathering was that the way he brewed these teas brought out different characteristics of the tea in each infusion, which I think helped greatly in the blind tasting setup. By contrast, some people (Evan has done this before) often carry out Gong Fu brewing in such a way that the tea keeps a more consistent character through each infusion. Although this can be pleasant for enjoying the tea, I found the approach Evan used here was more fruitful for actually understanding the tea.

The difference between these two approaches? I'm no expert at Gong Fu brewing but I tried to pay attention to what Evan was doing, and from comparing to my own experience, using a briefer second infusion, and a slightly longer first infusion, often seems to result in a more consistent character, whereas keeping the first two infusions closer in length seems to result in more of a difference between the two cups. The difference usually manifests in the first cup being more aromatic but the second being more flavorful, which I find helps to separate these two characteristics of the tea. However, it also can bring out different qualities of aroma between the first two cups.

Brandon's knowledge impresses:

If you are a die-hard tea enthusiast living within driving distance of Wilmington, Delaware, and have not yet had the opportunity to meet up with Brandon, I would recommend doing so. His knowledge and expertise of teas is uncannily impressive...it reminds me of my Ornithology professor, Greg Shriver, who can walk out in a salt marsh and hear a tiny, brief buzz noise, so quiet or distant that most people in the group did not even hear it, and he would immediately identify the sparrow to species level, long before anyone was able to actually see the bird.

Brandon not only pinned down the variety, county of origin, and style of production of most of these teas merely by sampling them, but was also able to identify the production date of the aged teas with a remarkable degree of accuracy. This level of tea identification skill not only shows that he has sampled a great number of teas, but that he pays attention to nuances of the tea's character enough to identify them with such specificity.

My thoughts on the teas:

I have not yet posted reviews of all the teas, but you can find my reviews of the first two, both from Seven Cups: Old Style Tie Guan Yin 2011, and Old Style Tie Guan Yin 2012. I liked the 2012 tea better, although I did not dislike the 2011 tea quite as much as the others present did, nor did I like the 2012 tea as much as the others seemed to.

The other teas were from the small company Floating Leaves, and I have yet to write up and post reviews.

To be honest, I was not wowed by any of the teas. The first two Tie Guan Yin's were in a similar style to a tea that I gave a 100/100 rating, Life in Teacup's Tie Guan Yin Traditional Roast Master Grade. That tea, granted, is pricier, but I thought it to show a world of difference. I've also had cheaper Tie Guan Yin's that I enjoyed more. The 2011 tea had too much sourness and too little flavor, and the 2012 tea had too much astringency, for my tastes.

There were a lot of oolongs from Muzha in Taiwan, which had been aged in various amounts, and one that was fresher, from 2011. None of these really impressed me. The only tea from Floating Leaves that I really liked was a Dong Ding Select, from Spring 2012. This tea had some interesting complexity, suggesting caramel in the aroma, but with a hint of mint in the finish, something I have never before encountered in a Dong Ding. But at $10 an ounce, it did not seem to compare with other teas in this price range.

The whole experience started to make me wonder if I perhaps have developed somewhat different tastes from the group gathered for this tasting. This morning I'm drinking a rather inexpensive Chinese green tea from Zhejiang province, Mountain Rose Herbs Dao Ren Tea, and I am enjoying it much more than I enjoyed any of the oolongs, in spite of Evan's greater skill at brewing (I've nearly always enjoyed a tea better when Evan brews it than when I prepare it myself).

How about you?

Have you ever participated in a blind tea tasting like the one described here? Have you tried teas from these two retailers? Have you experienced drinking tea with someone who has an insane level of tea identification skills? Have you noticed or thought about the distinction between brewing tea so as to retain consistency between different infusions, vs. brewing it so as to bring out different characters in each cup?

Tea Bag Buddy, and on Selling Tea Infusers in a Supermarket

Lately I've been on a supermarket kick, exploring the selection of tea and teaware for sale in various supermarkets. Here is a picture I took in a Stop and Shop supermarket in North Adams, MA:

This product, highlighted in a special hanging display clipped in front of the shelves in the aisle with the tea, is Primula's Tea Bag Buddy. In this post, I am not going to comment at all on this product itself, as it is one that I have little interest in as a loose tea enthusiast. Rather, I'm going to propose an alternative of a product that could be sold in a similar location in supermarkets.

Selling tea infusers and loose-leaf tea in a supermarket?

I find the product placement of the tea bag buddy in the aisle with the tea to be interesting, as it shows that people are already selling tea accessories alongside the tea itself. This is important because it highlights a method that could be used to enable supermarkets to sell loose-leaf tea to an audience of tea bag drinkers, not accustomed to drinking loose tea.

Instead of the tea bag buddy or a similar product, the store could sell tea infusers, in the same location, clipped to a prominent hanging display. If I were running a store, I would choose to carry Finum Permanent Tea Filters. I would price them at cost, with the idea that the item was included only for convenience, not profit, and the product would encourage shoppers to purchase loose-leaf tea.

Then, I would carry a modest selection of loose-leaf tea. I would draw attention to the price-per-cup and number of cups in the loose tea, because people unaccustomed to preparing tea from loose leaf tend not to have a good sense of these things. It would make the product more accessible and appealing. Here is a marketing idea:

I chose Twinings as an example of a tea to show, because I have found Twinings to be the loose tea most frequently available in supermarkets in the U.S., and in many cases, the only loose-leaf tea avaliable.

Of course, Twinings or other tea companies could probably come up with much more attractive-looking specials. Even if the tea companies selling loose tea do not change anything about their packaging to draw attention to the number of cups of tea in the container, or the cost-per-cup, the supermarket or store selling the tea can do this themselves, perhaps in a special display, label, or sign. Most supermarkets already place a price-per-count on the price tag for various products. The label shown here is for Bigelow tea bags, and shows a unit price per 100 count:

Such labels would immediately show the clear lower price per cup of loose-leaf tea. With the extremely generous serving of 2.5 grams per cup (much more than most tea bags), Twinings loose-leaf tea, which usually sells for around $4 for the container shown above, would be much cheaper than all but the most bargain-priced teas. And there are numerous brands selling lower-priced loose-leaf tea as well.

What do you think?

Do you think that a display highlighting a small selection of loose-leaf tea, with a few low-priced, high-quality tea infusers clipped to hang prominently in the aisle in front of them, would get people's attention and draw some new people in to switch to loose-leaf tea? Do you think this sort of setup could be financially viable, or even possibly lucrative, for a supermarket?

Confession About The Type of Tea Kettle I Use

Today I want to share a confession that may be astonishing to some of you.

I recently read a post on Uniquely tea, about tea kettles, in which Denise asks the question of what type of tea kettle people use. I originally posted my comment on that blog, but then I realized that it was interesting enough to share here as a post of its own:

My confession...I do not even own a tea kettle! I exclusively heat water for tea using a regular pot on the stove, usually, a copper bottom revere ware pot, to be precise. When the water is sufficiently hot, I pour it into a mug, teapot, or gaiwan, depending on what mood I'm in.

Why no tea kettle?

My apartment has a very small kitchen, with limited storage space. As I love food and love to cook, I have a variety of large implements, including a blender, toaster oven, and lots of food supplies. I also have a lot of cupboard space taken up by loose-leaf tea. I don't need a tea kettle to heat water, and as such, a tea kettle takes up unnecessary space. A pot, on the other hand, can be kept perpetually on the stove, because I can use it for a wide variety of purposes, including both heating water for tea, and cooking. Sometimes, especially when cooking for others in the winter, I cook using all four burners, so any implement that goes on the stove that cannot be used to cook food is taking away from my valuable kitchen space.

In the past, I've lived with people who had tea kettles, including an electronic water boiler from Zojirushi. As nifty as this device was, I did not really miss it. Electric kettles also take up a lot of space, and are less efficient from an energy usage standpoint, when compared to a gas stove, although they tend to be more efficient than electric stoves. (Gas is more efficient for heating than electricity, because over 3 times as much fuel needs to be burned to capture the free energy to produce a given unit of electricity, whereas when burning fuel directly, all available energy is converted to heat). And there's something I love about the old-fashioned process of heating water up in a pot on the stove.

I've been living without a tea kettle for well over three years now. I'm quite adept at pouring water from a large pot, into a small brewing vessel, and I rarely spill hot water, but in case I do, I usually pour over the sink anyway. And it works for me just fine!

What do you think?

Do you think I'm crazy for being such a die-hard tea enthusiast, and not owning a tea kettle? Do any of you also go without a tea kettle for heating water?

How Many People Are Put Off From Tea By Bad Green Tea?

I often like to re-read old posts on people's blogs. Sometimes I find them through web searches or links, other times by browsing. Today I want to draw attention to an old post on Adam Yusko's blog The Sip Tip. The post is titled Current thoughts on Tea Freshness, and the post is quite brief. I want to credit Adam's post with inspiring not only this post, but my recent post Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags?. In his post, Adam writes:

With all the health promotions out there, most peoples step away from black/ red tea would be a green tea, which is a lot more "time sensitive" than most black/red teas.

I've also noticed this, and I'd agree about the greater time-sensitivity of green tea, in that green tea is not as likely as black tea to stay fresh over long periods of time.

Also: green tea can be pickier about brewing:

I want to add to this observation that, with the exception of a few quirky teas (like Darjeeling oolong), I've found that green teas can be among the most sensitive to brewing temperature, and, in general, the most picky about brewing. I find a typical green tea takes more skill to brew well than a typical black, oolong, white, or Pu-erh tea.

Also: green tea purchased in tea bags can be worse than the worst black tea bags:

I recently published a post Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags? in which I explain how, in my experience, green tea bags can potentially be worse than the worst black tea bags.

Typical green teas in tea bags are more likely to lead to a bad tea drinking experience than black teas:

All these points, Adam's point about storage, and the points about brewing and the broader range of low-quality green tea bags, lead to the same conclusion: green teas are more likely to lead to a bad tea drinking experience for casual tea drinkers than other types of tea.

A lot of people try out tea first in the context of experimenting with green tea as a health product or weight loss method:

People who try out green tea as a health product are unlikely to experience green tea at its best, in the form of high-quality, loose-leaf green tea, properly prepared. What is more likely is that they will encounter low-quality tea in a tea bag, possibly of dubious freshness, and try brewing it with boiling water.



It's a sad fact that in America, many people's first experiences with tea are with low-quality green tea, in tea bags, consumed with intentions of weight loss or acquiring supposed "health benefits". These misguided ventures into green tea can be part of an overall healthy pattern of eating healthier foods, like when a person gives up soda for tea, but they can also be a part of harmful fad diets which have negative impacts on health. I'm active on Yahoo! Answers, where I sometimes answer tea-related questions, and an overwhelming majority of tea-related questions, once filtering through the ones about tea party politics, are ones relating to green tea and weight loss, with a few relating to green tea and promises of vague "health benefits".

Many of them are questions from people remarking that they want to start drinking green tea but that they find it tastes terrible.

How can we combat these things?

It's hard to combat a dominant cultural idea, like the ubiquitious association between green tea and weight loss in the public consciousness in America. I find that the best way to combat these sorts of ideas is, rather than negating or outright challenging them in an antagonistic way, to present a new, more truthful statement, and then, to repeat this statement frequently. I recommend:

• When talking to someone who seems motivated to drink tea for health or weight loss purposes, acknowledge and appeal to their concern for health. Emphasize that taste is a good indicator of freshness and quality, and that higher-quality teas and fresher teas are often lower in contaminants and are likely to be higher in beneficial chemicals (such as Vitamin C in green tea, which breaks down over time). Emphasize that whole-leaf tea stays fresh better than broken-leaf tea. Appeal to the things the person has already communicated that they care about (health). Emphasize that the process of enjoying your tea can be relaxing and can promote mindfulness, which is well-known to reduce stress and promote overall health.
• Avoid negating the person's motivations, and especially avoid telling the person what they "should" do, how they "should" think, or what they "should" want, and avoid approaching the person in any sort of way that puts them down. It can be tempting to say something like: "You shouldn't drink tea for its health benefits, you should drink tea because you like the way it tastes." This sort of statement is more likely to alienate a person and elicit a defensive reaction than a similar statement, worded like: "I recommend thinking less about health and focusing on drinking the teas that you enjoy most." or better yet, appeal to their desire for a healthy drink: "I think the healthiest approach is to focus on drinking the teas that taste best to you and that make you feel best."

It's a lot easier to work with people than against them!

TeaChat Discussion of Extra Dried Tea, and TeaVivre's Xin Yang Mao Jian

This post is in reply to a thread on the TeaChat forums, titled Extra Dried Tea. This thread begins with a poster, beachape, who wrote about friends they had in the Huangshan area of Anhui province in China; the discussion is about green tea:

...They told us that the secret was that they dry the tea more than usual when they prepare it. Most tea for sale is about 80% dried upon sale/packaging. They dry theirs as much as possible, which makes the tea very brittle but preserves well. Such brittle tea would not be good for sale, and producers prefer to have more water weight to gain a better profit...

There is then a reply from edkrueger who writes:

...I think the "extra dry" sounds like "properly dry". And a lot of products nowadays are not dry enough...

Chip, who moderates TeaChat, then chimes in:

Playing devil's advocate ... the drier the leaf, the more it is going to want to absorb surrounding humdity/moisture/aromas ... odors? Is this a logical conclusion? So, I would think the best storage of such tea would be paramount ... and even then, once open ... drink up!

I find this discussion interesting, in large part because I don't have enough knowledge or experience to say which, if any, of these lines of reasoning are accurate. Please chime in in the comments if you know about any of these things, and know which of these rationales are more or less valid, and can explain why.

My experience with TeaVivre's Xin Yang Mao Jian:

Recently I sampled a tea, Xin Yang Mao Jian from TeaVivre. I liked this tea very much; it was a bold, brisk, bitter green tea, darker, and fruity, with an intense aroma and flavor. I gave the tea a very high rating, 93/100. I also shared it with Evan of Pluck Tea, and we both enjoyed it; I enjoyed it even more with his brewing of it, as I find Evan to be considerably more skilled at preparing green teas than I am.

Here is what the leaf looks like now:



An interesting twist: the mao jian goes bad very quickly:

I wish I had photographed this tea up close right when I opened it, because I think it looked slightly different. It looked very wiry--so much that I posted a reply on the thread above remarking that this particularly tea was more thin, wiry, and brittle than I would expect for this style, and wondering if I had a batch of drier-than-normal tea. It's hard for me to know, however, whether the tea changed, or whether I've simply gotten to the bottom of the container, where the pieces seem to be both larger, and more broken. It's a simple fact of physics that when shaking a tea about, the smaller, denser pieces will tend to accumulate at the bottom, and the lighter, more wiry pieces will tend to stay at the top. This tea was relatively loosely packed, so as to keep the leaf intact, so I can see the settling explain the difference I observed between the beginning and the end of this small batch.

But, regardless of explanation, I found that, about a month and a half after opening the mao jian green tea, when I got to the bottom of the container to consume the last several cups worth of the tea, it began to acquire "off" aromas, and these aromas were so unpleasant that I ended up pouring off the last cup that I brewed. I have little interest in brewing up the remaining few cups worth.

Granted, this is a tricky tea to brew. Even when it was right out of the container, I found that it had a narrow range of temperatures that produced good results, and it would be dramatically bitter if the temperature were too high, and quite bland if it were too low. I also found it performed better with Gong Fu style brewing, and was trickier to produce good results with using western-style brewing. But when I got it right, it was very good--good enough that I gave it a 93/100 rating.

Either the tea has spoiled somehow, or the leaf that settled to the bottom of the container has characteristics that I find objectionable. The remaining leaf smells strong, but no longer smells pleasing to me. There are also strong vegetal tones which were absent in the original aroma of the dry leaf. The remaining dry leaf now smells a lot like asparagus to me, and the brewed cup is now substantially more bitter and astringent, even brewing at lower temperatures.

I was careful to store this tea in a clipped bag inside an airtight tin. The inside of the tin even smells a bit off now.

Interestingly, I stored two other green teas from TeaVivre the same way, their Huang Shan Mao Feng, and their Chun Mee, and both of these teas have stayed fresh very well. The Mao Feng in particular tastes just as fresh as the day I opened it, and if anything, has come to taste a bit better to me.

Do you have any explanations?

I'd be curious to hear anyone's explanations about this phenomenon. I also would like some critical feedback on the original thread...and I'm curious if you think there is a relationship between these two things, or if you think they are unrelated.

Top 5 Mistakes I Make When Brewing Tea

This top 5 post highlights the most frequent mistakes I make when brewing tea.

• Brewing tea that's not great quality - I know this isn't really a "brewing" problem, but when I ask the question: "Why didn't this cup of tea turn out well?" the answer is often that the tea used to prepare it was not particularly fresh or high-quality. Although I've encountered some green teas and a few oolongs that are truly picky about brewing, most teas I drink aren't, so if the tea turns out truly bad, the tea is usually the culprit.


• Not making the water hot enough - I rarely brew tea too hot, mainly because I am aware of the types of teas that tend to be sensitive to water that is too hot, and I tend to be cautious with them. However, I also find that there are many teas that I prefer brewed with fairly hot water, that other people recommend brewing with cooler water. I thus find that I err too much on the side of water being too cool for my tastes, especially when following written brewing instructions. Another reason that I can brew tea with water that is too cool is if the room is cold and I do not warm up the mug or tea pot before brewing.


• Oversteeping a whole-leaf tea on the second infusion - I often make multiple infusions of my tea when brewing western-style, in a mug, using a tea infuser. I generally do not do a "rinse" of the leaves as one does with proper Gong Fu brewing. When not doing a rinse, however, the leaves tend to take some time to become wet and start infusing, so the first infusion may be rather weak. The second infusion, however, can become much stronger even with a shorter steeping time. For example, I recently steeped a green tea for 2 minutes, and it came out just right. I steeped it a second time, for 1 minute, and it was much too strong on the second infusion. Oops.


• Using too little leaf when brewing greener oolongs - I find the amount of leaf necessary when brewing greener oolongs to be hard to gauge. If I've used too much leaf, I can usually detect this from the smell, as soon as I pour water over the leaf, and make a short infusion. When I use too little leaf, I just end up with a bland cup. I seem to make this mistake a lot. For some reason, I don't have this problem with darker oolongs as much.


• Brewing a cup of tea out of habit when I am not really in the mood for it - As much as I love tea, I'm not always in the mood for it. There are a few times in my day, especially in the morning, when I regularly make myself a cup of tea. On those occasions when I make a cup of tea out of habit without really wanting it, I usually don't enjoy it very much. I find that this problem is preventable if I imagine what (if anything) I want to brew up before actually starting to do so. The problem is only on those days when I'm on auto-pilot.

How about you...what are some of the mistakes you make when brewing tea?

Surface Area, Tea, Food, Physics: Do We Misuse The Word "Superficial"?

This post is about surface area, both as it pertains to tea, to food, and to everything about our world. In our culture, we use language in such a way that implies that, when dealing with anything, it's what's really inside that matters. Phrases like "on the surface", or the word "superficial" (which just means on the surface) are used to describe phenomena that are somehow more fleeting or transient, less reflective of true reality, and less important than things that are "deep", "on the inside", or "at the core" of something.



Diagram by Cmglee, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This post provides some powerful examples that demonstrate that this way of looking at things is not always valid. The world, both on a human level, and a fundamental physical level, does not always work in the way that the the word "superficial" suggests. The surface, or the boundary of a region, is often where the most interesting things are happening, and this phenomenon is widespread at all levels in our universe.

Surface and Boundary in Biology:

Anyone who has studied microbiology will undoubtedly be familiar with the cell membrane. Cell membranes, a double layer of nonpolar (oily) and polar (like water) substances creates a barrier which separates the interior of a cell from the outside world. Complex channels exist in these membranes to allow a living cell to control what passes through its walls, and structures attach to the membrane to allow it to interact with the outside world. A large portion of biological research focuses on the cell membrane or the various proteins and structures that exist within it.



Tea And Surface Area:

The surface area of tea leaf is of critical importance in determining how the tea infuses in water. The infusion of the tea's flavor and chemicals into the water happens at the surface of the leaf, so increasing the surface area will make the tea infuse more quickly.

The following is a photo of Imperial Tea Garden's Moon Swirl White Tip, a green tea from Hunan province. The complex curls and folds of the leaf provide greater surface area than the small, tightly rolled pellets suggest.



Breaking up the tea leaf increases the surface area, thus making the tea infuse faster. Finely-broken tea, like fannings and dust, have the highest surface area to volume ratio, and thus infuse fastest. On the other hand, whole-leaf tea with thick, tough leaves has the highest surface area to volume ratio, and thus infuses slowest of all, considerably slower than whole-leaf tea with thinner, more delicate leaves.

Thinking about surface area also helps us to understand the infusion behavior of flavored teas as compared to pure teas. When flavoring is added in the form of extracts or essential oils, the flavoring is added to the surface of the leaf. While some of the flavor may permeate deeper into the leaf, it is concentrated on the surface. The flavoring thus infuses very quickly. This is why flavored teas often have the strongest aroma of their "flavor" in the first infusion, and then taste more like tea in subsequent infusions.

Food, Surface Area, and Nutrition:

Surface area is relevant in food and nutrition as well. The skin of fruits and vegetables tend to be richer in vitamins, minerals, and proteins than the interior. Although not all fruit and vegetables have edible skin, the ones that do often have remarkably more nutritional value in their skin. As an example, let's look at the potato:

The USDA Nutrient Database tells us that 100 grams of baked potato skins have 4 grams of protein, 8 grams of fiber, and 39% RDA of Iron. 100 grams of baked potato flesh, on the other hand, while slightly less caloric (probably because they contain more water), only contains 2% of Iron, 2 grams of protein, and 1 gram of fiber. Baked potatos are not a good example for comparing Vitamin C content because the skin of the potato is exposed to more heat than the interior, so, although the skin is richer in Vitamin C, baked potato skins have similar vitamin C content. This is just an example. In some fruits, such as apples, the skin contains much more vitamin C by weight than the flesh. Moral of the story: don't peel your fruits and vegetables.



This blue potato has a lumpy shape, increasing its surface-area per unit volume. Buying lumpy, irregularly-shaped varieties of fruit can actually lead to better nutrition by adding more surface area. Similarly, buying small fruits also has the same effect.

Surface Area And Information in Quantum Physics:

There is some relatively recent work in quantum physics that has suggested a most peculiar result: it is possible that the amount of information that can be stored in a region of space is bounded not by its volume, but by its surface area. If you're a physicist, you can find the original paper here: Operational view of the holographic information bound, published in Physics Review D, Vol. 82, No. 12, 2010.

Doesn't it sound bizarre and counterintuitive? In other words, imagine a filing cabinet. The amount of information you can put in the cabinet depends not on the space inside the cabinet, but on the amount of area on the walls of the cabinet.

What does all this mean?

The point is...the phenomenon of the surface being more important than the inside of something, and the surface area being more important than volume for various practical reasons, is a phenomenon that appears again and again at all levels of our world: with tea, with food, with microbiology, and with the very fundamental laws of physics at the smallest possible scales.

So next time someone describes something as superficial, stop to think...maybe they're actually describing the things that really matter in life.

Flavors Sinking to the Bottom of the Cup, and Stirring Tea

Pictured here is the bottom of a cup of black tea:



One thing that I've noticed while drinking certain teas is that certain flavors and qualities of a tea tend to sink to the bottom of a cup. This is less of a problem when using a relatively short, wide cup like the one pictured above, and even less of a problem when using smaller teacups like those more commonly used in China and Southeast Asia, but even with these small cups, this phenomenon can occur.

What exactly sinks to the bottom of the cup?

From my own experience, I've found that flavor, more than aroma, tends to sink to the bottom of the cup. The bottom of the cup of tea tends to be stronger in flavor, more bitter, more sour, and to a slight degree, also sweeter. Astringency also tends to concentrate at the bottom of the cup. However, there are a few unusual teas in which I've found aromatic qualities sank to the bottom of the cup. One such tea was Huo Shan Yellow Buds (Huoshan Huangya) from Upton Tea Imports, in which the bottom of the cup had hints of olive and wine which were totally absent from the top of the cup.

For some brief science, tea contains both dissolved chemicals and suspended solids. Dissolved solids leave the tea transparent, whereas suspended solids are visible if you look closely enough, and from a distance, contribute to an opaque or cloudy visual appearance to the tea. Suspended solids only stay in water because the water is moving; if the water does not move, they will eventually settle to the bottom (imagine the green dust left at the bottom of a cup of sencha). Truly dissolved chemicals do not sink to the bottom of the cup once dissolved: they remain dispersed equally throughout the liquid. However, as the amount of mixing in a cup of tea, especially a tall cup, can be limited, dissolved substances still tend to be unequally distributed throughout the cup. This is particularly true (terrible pun here) when there is a lot of suspended particulate matter, small pieces of tea leaf, at the bottom of the cup, as dissolved substances are continually leaching or infusing from these tiny pieces of leaf.

In general, you tend not to taste suspended particulate matter, and rather, only taste things that are actually dissolved. So what is going on here is that suspended particulate matter, tiny pieces of tea leaf, concentrates at the bottom of the cup, and then various flavor components infuse from this matter. You might think that the cloudy or opaque teas would be more likely to exhibit the flavor-sinking quality, and I've found this true to some degree, but there are exceptions, like Two Leaves and a Bud's Darjeeling First Flush, which produces a very clear cup, and yet still has much of the flavor sinking to the bottom of the cup. I suspect that much of the particulate matter is so small that you cannot see it, but that it is still not truly dissolved.

Teas where I find some of the flavor sinks to the bottom of the cup:

For examples of this phenomenon, I've found that while drinking Dragon Well from Novus Tea, the flavors (bitterness, sweetness, etc.) tend to sink to the bottom of the cup. In the Formosa Amber Oolong (TT55) from Upton Tea Imports, I found a sourness sank to the bottom of the cup. A black tea in tea bags which I reviewed recently, Vienna, from The Foreign Office, had a strong bitterness that sank to the bottom of the cup.

I also find this phenomenon happens with herbal teas. For example, I find that when brewing Monarda sp. (bee balm, wild bergamot, oswego tea, etc.), a lot of astringency tends to sink to the bottom of the cup. The same phenomenon occurs, although in a less pronounced fashion, with other mint-family plants. I definitely notice it, for instance, with orange mint.

Stirring Tea:

If you drink tea from a larger cup, especially a taller mug, and you find that you don't like the fact that certain flavors or aromatic qualities tend to sink to the bottom of the cup, you can just stir your tea. But I don't necessarily always want to make my tea more uniform. Sometimes there is something pleasant about enjoying the different facets of a cup of tea...the fleeting, transient aromas at the top, leading into bolder flavors at the end.

Stirring your tea is something that most people associate with the addition of milk or cream and/or sugar, but it is something that I find can be helpful even if you drink your tea straight like I do.

How about you?

Do you ever notice that certain qualities in your tea sink to the bottom of the cup? Do you like or dislike this phenomenon? Do you stir your tea because of this? Do you seek out taller cups, or smaller ones, to magnify, or minimize, this phenomenon?

Lipton Tea - Brewing and Attitude Recommendations

This post is inspired by an interesting observation. I was reading Steven Knoerr's 39 Steeps, and in the post Drink Cheap Wine . . . and Tea? (which is a great post, by the way), I noticed something interesting.

The first is a positive remark Steven made about Lipton tea. The second is (gasp!) a positive comment *I* made about Lipton tea. Here is a humble bag of Lipton tea, to get you in the spirit of this post:



Picking on Lipton:

Often, I think Lipton gets a bad rap. Because it's the dominant brand, it is the default tea for connoisseurs to "pick on". Ironically though, picking on it by default may actually help this brand maintain its place as the dominant brand in the market...but that's another issue. I was picked on a lot as a kid, and it's not terribly pleasant or constructive, not something I would ever wish on anyone, so rather than doing the same to Lipton, I'll share my genuine opinion about what I really think about this tea.

What do we expect from Lipton?

I think tea is influenced a lot by how we perceive it, which is one of the key aspects that Steven gets at in his post above. If we order a whole-leaf oolong tea with a steep price tag on it, and it just tastes bad, where does our head go?

• Maybe I didn't brew it properly.


• Maybe the tea was not stored properly.


• Maybe I just don't know how to appreciate this particular tea or style of tea. (especially if the tea is an unfamiliar style that we do not regularly sample)


• Maybe this particular batch is no good.

But if we have the same experience drinking a cup of Lipton tea, our head usually goes to a different place:

• This tea is low-quality, mass-produced junk.

Is this justified? Objectively, we can look at Lipton and say: the tea bag contains finely broken leaf, fannings or dust. That means it's low grade. That means it's bad. But this logic does not hold.

Broken-leaf tea is not necessarily bad. For example, I tried a broken-leaf orthodox tea from Tanzania a while back, Upton Tea's TK18: Livingstonia Estate GFBOP, and one of my favorites was their now-discontinued Himalayan BOP Blend. These are not just "decent" or "passable" teas, these are teas I consider truly outstanding, and would gladly drink over any number of whole-leaf selections.

Lipton puts a great amount of care and resources into quality control, selecting teas and blending them to maintain a consistent quality of their tea as conditions change from season to season and year to year. Objectively, there's no reason to expect Lipton to necessarily be bad. And, if we do not enjoy it, it makes sense to at least ask whether or not we stored it properly, and brewed it so as to bring out the best in it.

My recommendations about Lipton:

If you are going to drink Lipton tea, treat it like any other tea:

• Make sure it's fresh and has been stored properly.


• Put some care into brewing it: make sure the water is boiling, heat your brewing vessel up so you're actually steeping the tea with boiling water, and carefully watch the steeping time (I recommend only 1 minute for a single cup).

My original comment on 39 Steeps was that I once gave this advice to one of my friends who was complaining about Lipton tea being bad. She told me after following the advice that she was very surprised, and that she really enjoyed the cup of tea. She told me that the resulting cup of tea was both less bitter and more flavorful than what had resulted when she had brewed the same tea haphazardly.

I want to make one final remark. I've tried a lot of teas, and Lipton's plain black tea is a lot better than a lot of teas out there. It's not the lowest of the low, nor is it really anywhere close. I've tried relatively pricey whole-leaf teas that I enjoyed much less, not to mention any number of other mainstream tea bags from the common brands in the supermarket, that I also think don't quite compare. Objectively, I think of Lipton as being somewhere in the middle in terms of quality, which is pretty impressive given its price scale of production.

What do you think?

Do you bash Lipton, or use it as an example of low-quality tea? Or do you enjoy it, and think it's actually pretty decent quality? Have you ever drunk Lipton, or any other mainstream, inexpensive, mass-produced teas, while putting care into properly storing them and preparing them, as you would expensive loose-leaf tea? What were your results?

You can read and share reviews of Lipton's Black Tea on RateTea if you are curious what others think, or want to chime in for yourself.

Tea as Slow Food: Fast Tea vs Slow Tea

Today I want to write about a social movement that, in my opinion, is directly related to the world of tea. This is the slow food movement. Slow food is a broad and far-reaching concept; it can be seen as an opposite or alternative to "fast food". The idea of slow food is to preserve and create new traditional local and regional cuisines, to enjoy food together with people, and to become more aware of where our food comes from. By promoting local food cultures, the movement encourages diversity, and by promoting local foods and raising awareness of how food is produced, the movement promotes sustainability. The huge number of tags I've classified this post with demonstrates that this movement is related to many different facets of the things I care about.

The logo of this movement is a snail, cutely symbolic of slowness:



Wikipedia has a great article about slow food, which I would recommend at least glancing at. If you want official information from the movement itself, you can visit the websites of Slow Food International or Slow Food USA. The slow food movement is something I strongly support, so I would urge you to check it out, and give some thought to what it advocates, beyond just reading this post.

How does slow food relate to tea?

Tea, like any food or beverage, can be viewed (and produced/consumed) in any number of different ways. Virtually everything about the slow food movement can be applied to tea, except possibly the "buy local" part (although one can still buy or grow local herbs for use in herbal teas, and one can certainly support local tea shops and tea houses). Using the concept of "fast food vs. slow food" as a continuum, we have two different "ends of the spectrum" so to speak.

Tea as fast food: "fast tea":

The ultimate manifestation of tea as fast food is ready-to-drink tea, which includes both bottled tea and tea in cans and other types of containers. This tea is brewed in a factory, packaged, and sold as-is. Ready-to-drink tea is fast food, in that it is quick and easy to purchase and then immediately drink, and that it is primarily an industrial product, produced in a factory, with minimal preparation on behalf of the person consuming it.

Tea as slow food: "slow tea":

At the opposing, "slowest" end of the spectrum, would be single-estate, single-harvest whole-leaf teas, processed by traditional methods, and brewed traditionally in loose-leaf form. Tea traditions are diverse, so I will not claim that "slow tea" needs to be brewed gong fu style in a gaiwan or Yixing tea pot. There are rich tea traditions in eastern and western Europe, in the middle east, and all across the globe, and they each have different practices of enjoying tea. But in order for it to be slow tea, it needs to be brewed at the point of drinking, and it needs to be brewed and drunk with care and thought.

Slow tea, like slow food, encompasses not just the production of the tea, but also the enjoyment of it. Slow tea is not just about the tea originating in a specific garden, but it is about the person drinking the tea knowing which garden it is from, and knowing when it was harvested, and knowing a bit about what makes this tea special. And slow tea involves paying attention to how the tea tastes, and enjoying the setting and process of drinking tea, whether it's a calm, meditative tea session alone, or sharing tea with friends or family.

Most tea is somewhere in the middle:

Relative to loose-leaf tea, tea bags certainly move much farther in the direction of "fast tea", but from the vantage point of bottled or ready-to-drink teas, they are more "slow".

In summary:

The slow food movement is a social movement which promotes greater awareness of and enjoyment of food, including awareness of where food comes from, enjoyment of food, and preservation and promotion of local food cultures. Slow food can easily be applied to tea, and pushes one in the direction of single-estate, single-harvest, loose-leaf teas, brewed with care and enjoyed mindfully either in a private reflective state, or shared with friends or family.

Slow tea and RateTea:

Personally, I want to support the slow food movement and what it advocates for. One of the main motivating factors behind creating RateTea is to get people to think more about tea, in the same sort of framework that the slow food movement works. I want people to rate teas not to discover which tea is "best" in some absolute sense, but just because I want them to start thinking about how their tea tastes...a key idea with RateTea is that the ratings and reviews are tied into a database that classifies each tea by style and by region, and in one click, a person can go from a page of a specific review, or a specific tea, to an article about that style of tea, or that tea-producing region. The idea is to draw casual tea drinkers in and open the world of high-quality loose tea to them, and in doing so, get them to think more about food and drink as a whole, and hopefully, move our society in the direction of greater sustainability in the process, so that we are all healthier, happier, and more able to appreciate all our food and drink, and where it comes from.

How about you?

Were you aware of the slow food movement before reading this post? Where do you think your own tea habits fall on the fast food / slow food spectrum? Does your interest in awareness of tea's production and enjoyment of artisan teas carry forward into your appreciation and awareness of food in general? Were you aware of my intentions of promoting "slow food" through RateTea or do you think this is something it would be good for me to emphasize more on the site?

Energy Saving Tips for Making Iced Tea

There is a hot week in store for many parts of the U.S. this week, and I'm gearing up for more iced tea brewing this week. Currently I have two batches made for today, one an herbal blend of fresh spearmint, fresh lemongrass, and dried lemon verbena, and one a straight black tea, an English Breakfast blend. While many of us get ready to brew more iced tea, I want to share a tip or brewing method that I have found is very easy and saves considerable time and energy.

When I brew iced tea, I always recommend steeping a large amount of loose tea leaves (or tea bags) in a small amount of hot water, because the process of cooling water to make iced tea is both time- and energy-intensive. Then, you can dilute the concentrated tea to taste, to make a large batch. However, even if you are already practicing this method, there is an additional step that can save you both time and energy.

What is going on in this photo?



This is a photo of my kitchen sink. In this photo, I have already brewed the concentrated cup of tea, which I will later dilute. I have then poured this hot tea into a jar, which I have closed with a lid (this is important--otherwise the aroma of the tea can escape into the air). I then place the jar inside a large pot and fill the pot with cold water. Avoid using delicate or temperature-sensitive glassware--a quick hot/cold contrast can shatter some glass.

The cold water from the tap, which is typically well below room temperature even in the summer, rapidly cools off the hot tea to below room temperature. If you want to speed the process, you can let it sit for a couple minutes, pour off the water in the pot, which will have warmed up, and then refill the pot with cold water.

Now, after a few more minutes, your tea can be diluted with additional hot water, and chilled in the refridgerator, or can be poured directly over ice if you want to drink it immediately.

The benefits of this method:

• Time-saving - Other than pouring the hot tea over ice directly (which requires a lot of ice), this is the fastest way to make iced tea--the water will cool much faster by this method than if you set hot tea to cool in air, or if you place hot tea in the fridge.


• Energy-saving - By cooling the tea as much as possible before placing it in the fridge, you save considerable energy required to cool the hot tea to the temperature inside the fridge. The low temperature of the cold tap water is free, in the sense that no electricity or energy is required to cool it. Keep in mind also that making ice requires energy, so if you use this method so that you reduce the amount of ice needed to make iced tea, you are still saving energy.


• Cool-saving - Whenever you save energy on refrigeration, you also save excess heat from moving out into your kitchen. A refrigerator simply moves heat--pumping it out of the interior and into the exterior, which is your kitchen. If your home is not air conditioned, you will enjoy the additional comfort of a slightly cooler kitchen; if your home or kitchen is air conditioned, however, this additional savings will translate into additional energy savings because your air conditioner now has less heat to remove from your home or kitchen.

Conserving energy is both valuable in its own right to reduce the negative impacts that humans have on the environment, and it is also immediately beneficial to you in a financial sense, by reducing your electric bill. This method will not only save you time and help you to get your iced tea quicker, but, if you pay for your own electricity, it will save you money as well, and regardless of whether or not you do, it will help protect the environment.

How do you brew your iced tea? Do you do anything in your iced tea preparation process to save energy like this?

Iced Teas of the Day: Pure Tea, and Herbal Blends

Today is a very hot day here in Philadelphia. It's currently 91, and the projected high was 96 but I see it's now downgraded to 94. I don't mind the heat, honestly, but I have switched to iced tea after a single cup of hot tea this morning. I have two batches brewed up:

Iced Ali shan oolong:

The caffeinated iced tea I'm drinking, the only true tea, is an iced A Li Son Oolong from Tradition, which is a surprisingly inexpensive whole-leaf Taiwanese high-mountain greener oolong. I have never made it iced, and I'm curious how it would turn out.

It's good, not my favorite iced tea, but good. One thing that is very interesting to me, however, is how different the aroma and flavor is of the iced tea compared to the hot tea. This is a tea that I normally brew with multiple brief infusions, although I have brewed it with a single, long infusion to compare. With iced tea, I make only a single, long infusion (this one was about 15 minutes--this is a whole-leaf tea with very large leaves, and it needs a long time to fully infuse.)

The result is a pale yellow-green cup with surprising opacity (contrasting with the very clear cup if brewing this tea hot--does anyone have a clue as to a scientific explanation of this?). The aroma is honey-like, with tones of wood. Much more floral, and with a lighter overall character, than when drinking it iced. Smoother flavor. It really tastes as if I have added honey, and I have not added any.

An iced herbal tea:

My other iced "tea" was an herbal blend, containing no actual tea. For a four-cup batch, I used two teaspoons of rooibos, two heaping teaspoons of lemon verbena, and about the equivalent of two teaspoons of dried lemon balm, which I had grown myself in my garden in Delaware. This is a similar blend to an iced tea+herb blend and an iced herbal blend I wrote about earlier. I have been refining it and I love this batch, but now I'm out of lemon balm so I'll need to switch it up.

Lemon balm is interchangeable with lemon verbena; I find the two plants are most similar of all the lemon-scented herbs, which makes sense as they are the most closely related, both being in the Lamiales order (which contains the mint family and the verbena/vervain family, as well as other food plants such as olive and sesame, and some favorite floral scents including lilac). I also have been buying fresh lemongrass, which is available at the reading terminal market, and have been experimenting steeping it fresh in hot water to make an herbal tea, which I have tried both hot and iced, and I hope to write more about that soon.

The "Perfect Tea Timer": An Hourglass Tea Timer

A while back, in my review of the Random Tea Room in Philadelphia, I shared a picture of this tea timer:



Several people pointed out to me that they have seen this tea timer elsewhere, and searching on the web, I found that it is actually fairly widely available, so I decided to write my own post just about this timer, and the thoughts that it brings up.

My Impression of the "Perfect Tea Timer":

I originally remarked that the timer was very cute, but not the most practical timer. Why? I think its cuteness is self-evident, much like this bunny:



Why, however, did I say it not practical? I found several possible reasons for this.

A Noiseless Timer: Liability or Asset?

For one, the timer makes no noise and indeed, does not do anything particularly visible when time runs out. This, however, on its own, is not necessarily a bad thing. One thing I like about the culture and ritual of tea making and tea drinking is mindfulness. I find that taking a break from tea can help us get out of the fast pace of our modern life, and slow down by focusing our attention on the tea. This timer requires us to focus a bit of attention on it, periodically, to enable us to see the passage of time. There is something a bit more natural about this process to me, than the chiming or blinking lights of most modern alarms or timers.

Lengths of Time to Steep Tea:

The other reason that I find this timer impractical is that I regularly want to steep tea for a briefer period of time. 3 minutes, to me, is my "middle" time. If I am brewing a new tea that I have never sampled before, and I am brewing "Western style" (i.e. about a teaspoon of leaf to make a single cup with one infusion), then 3 minutes is the default of what I shoot for. But by default, this means that some teas, even brewing Western style, I will prefer briefer times for. An example would be most broken-leaf black teas, which I tend to brew for only 1-2 minutes.

If I'm practicing something closer to gong fu cha (I say closer to because I rarely actually properly practice gong fu cha, with the proper teaware and all) I will use much briefer infusions...1 minute would be on the longer side for a first infusion. When you get really good at brewing tea, you don't need the timer as much, but I find the timer is helpful both for learning, and for recording times so that you can share your brewing experience with others.

If I were to make a timer like this "Perfect Tea Timer", I'd pick times of 1 minute, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes. The times don't need to be exact; you can see that the sand is half out at half a minute, and so on. But it's tricky to see 30 seconds on a 3 minute hourglass. That's why I said that, for me at least, this is not the most practical tea timer.

My Closing Question:

If you made a timer like this to suit your own particular tastes and habits for preparing tea, what times would you choose?

Multiple Infusions of a Tea Bag: Novus Tea's Dragon Well Green Tea

Many casual tea drinkers resteep their tea bags, but people who are into more serious, gong fu style brewing, generally do not apply their art to tea bags. But there is no reason that tea bags cannot be brewed in this fashion, so as to bring out nuances and subtleties in the same way that these qualities emerge when brewing loose-leaf tea with multiple, brief infusions in a gaiwan or yixing teapot. While I agree with die-hard tea enthusiasts that brewing loose-leaf tea in a small brewing vessel is preferable to using tea bags on many counts, it is still possible to bring out the qualities of a tea bag more or less, based on how you brew it.



An Aside: Why am I drinking tea from a tea bag?

I frequent coffee shops where, out of politeness to the business, I generally drink whatever tea is served. One coffee shop that I like for its quiet atmosphere and reliable wireless is Cafe Clave, located in West Philadelphia. A musicless shop (unless live music is playing), the soundscape in here is much like a library. I like to go here when I have highly technical things to work on that require focus. It is actually significantly quieter than my apartment, which is on a busy corner and often has nearly constant truck traffic.

The brewing experience:

Infusion 1, 1 minute: Aroma strongly suggestive of chamomile, with similar fruity and grassy tones, a pleasing hay or straw-like quality. However, cooler, crisper, and lighter than chamomile. Seems strongly caffeinated.

Infusion 2, 2.5 minutes: Aroma similar to first cup, fruity and suggestive of chamomile, less of the grass or hay tones. Darker infusion, deeper flavor. Still cool and crisp. Finish still very similar to chamomile; still seems to have significant caffeine.

Infusion 3, 3 minutes: very similar to, almost indistinguishable from the second cup, but with slightly less-evident caffeine.

Infusion 4, 5 minutes: Surprisingly strong tones of mint, reminiscent of peppermint or pennyroyal, emerge in this infusion. Chamomile-like qualities are gone, very slight, almost metallic grassiness lingers on the tongue in the finish. Overall character is thin and watery, and flavor is muted, but the flavor seems to sink to the bottom of the cup; flavor at the bottom of the cup is noticeable stronger. Afterwards, the tea is spent and the tea bag has almost no aroma left.

Final thoughts?

This tea was surprisingly complex, and lasted surprisingly long (with less leaf than one would typically use for gong fu cha). I am impressed...and eager to try the process again next time I am confronted with a tea bag with reasonably high-quality tea. I also briefly summarized this experience with my review and rating of this tea on RateTea. It goes to show you: I may not like tea bags, I may write about how I don't like them, and I still believe this. But I think that even with a tea bag, you can definitely have a better tea experience if you approach brewing the tea with as much care as you would if you were brewing loose-leaf tea, especially if your tea bag contains high-quality tea.

If I have an opportunity to do this particular tea over again, I will use a much briefer first infusion. I will also say, I hope to try more of Novus' teas when I return to Cafe Clave. This is the third that I've tried; the other two were solidly good, and I wonder if I would like them more if I took more time to experience their nuances through careful brewing.

Random Tea Room, Random But Delightful

I have been wanting to check out the Random Tea Room for quite some time, as it has been recommended to me by a number of people as being one of the best places to experience tea, especially in the Chinese tradition, in the Philadelphia area. I finally checked it out this past thursday. Here is a photo of the storefront, at 713 North 4th Street:


The Random Tea Room & Curiosity Shop is located in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia, due northeast from center city. It is easily accessible from the Spring Garden stop of SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line (Blue Line), which is how I got there. Street parking is not too hard to find in this neighborhood in case you want to drive.

The neighborhood is interesting; like most of Philadelphia, it is fairly dense, with old and often ornate housing. This area has recently become "trendy" for better or for worse, and has had some newer housing built which, in my opinion, does not fit well with the architecture of the area. But the Random Tea Room and its immediate surroundings look relatively unmarred by modern architecture.

The inside of the shop was quirky, and I mean that in a lovable sort of way. It's a tiny space, but it has been artfully arranged so as to create a number of different nooks and crannies with different feels to them. The window is lined with cushioned window-seats, and there is a chess-board table, a larger round table where I sat with my friend, and some other seating around the other corners.

The Tea:

This place has a good and well-balanced selection of different types of teas, with several black teas, green teas, whites, oolongs, and Pu-erhs, and a good representation of different styles and regions. It is a pure tea lover's store; there are a few flavored teas but they are mostly of the traditional varieties, Jasmine of the Chinese teas, and Earl Grey of the British-style teas, so as not to agitate purists too greatly. There is also an interesting selection of herbs, including quite a number of pure herbs, and several blends, with an emphasis on the medicinal properties.

The tea is also sold loose by the ounce, and prices are very reasonable.

We ordered Bi Luo Chun, and it was served in this unusually large gaiwan:



We were given a tea timer, but we were given a bit more leaf than would be optimal for this timer so we settled on briefer steeping times. The tea was delicious. One thing that immediately jumped out at me about the tea was that it had not been selected for western tastes, which often tend towards sweetness and avoid sharper qualities. I felt clumsy using the gaiwan, due to a combination of its large size, and my lack of experience using one, and I spilled a little (although that's what the tray is for), but it was fun.

I recall a long time ago buying a small amount of Bi Luo Chun from Teavana. It was aromatic, pleasing, there was some complexity to the aroma. But brewed...it was sweet...and just...not edgy enough. I also have some very inexpensive Bi Luo Chun in my cupboard and it's a bit more complex but just a bit. This Bi Luo Chun was edgy, and I loved it. In addition to the sweet, grassy tones, there were some deep, fruity aromas as well, and an almost skunky (in a pleasant way, if that makes sense) herbaceous quality.

I also took a picture of this hourglass tea timer; it wasn't the most practical timer, but I thought it was very cute and random, fitting with the theme quite well:



I would like to come back here soon, and I would heartily recommend this place to anyone looking for either a good tea experience, or just a pleasant dose of randomness.

Making Tea in a Microwave: Why not?

I often receive interesting questions through the RateTea contact form; with permission from the asker, I am posting one of these questions here, as I think the question and answer may be relevant:

The question:

Hello,
I generally drink black tea but decided to start drinking green tea too. When I read these instructions for brewing green tea bags, they always refer to pouring hot water over the bag. What is wrong with using a cup in the microwave to the desired temperture and then putting the tea bag directly into it. BTW, I am currently using Kirkland Japanese Tea for starters. Also, the box says to steep only for 30 seconds or so but I read on sites to brew up to 2 minutes or more.

Thanks, if you can help.

Glenn

My Answer:

Hello Glenn!

Thanks for writing!

While a microwave can be used to heat water to brew tea, and the flavor can come out just fine, there are a number of reasons that people tend not to recommend this as a brewing method.

The main reason is that when using a microwave, it can be hard to tell from looking at the cup exactly what temperature the water is. When using a stove, small bubbles start forming and then the water reaches a rolling boil as it approaches the boiling point. In a microwave, these bubbles generally do not form at the same temperatures, and it is even possible to superheat the water (above the boiling point), although this is rare and unstable (the water would quickly start boiling off when you placed a tea bag in it).

Safety is a second reason. Superheated water in a microwave can actually be dangerous, and can cause burns:

http://www.snopes.com/science/microwave.asp

And lastly, it's hard to give instructions. You cannot specify temperature in a microwave, just the power setting and amount of time, and these differ hugely from one microwave to another.

And a new resource:

Also, in response to this question, I added a new page to RateTea, about making tea using a microwave. If you check it out, you will be able to view a brief Mythbusters video of superheated water. You also may be surprised to learn that heating water for tea in a microwave typically uses more energy than even an electric stovetop.

Infusion vs. Decoction

Most tea enthusiasts are very familiar with the term infusion. The word decoction, on the other hand, is a bit more alien. What's the difference?

Infusion:

The word infuse means to steep in liquid, usually to extract flavor and other soluble ingredients. Infusion is the method used to prepare most herbal teas. Usually, in the case of most tea and herbal teas, the water is hot. Cold-brewed iced tea is one exception to the usual pattern of hot water. The temperature can also vary considerably, such as with more delicate green teas, but the general idea is the same.

Usually, tea is prepared by making a covered infusion, ensuring that the more fleeting aromas do not escape to the air and can be enjoyed while drinking the cup.

Decoction:

The word decoct, on the other hand, means to extract the flavor or essence of something by continued boiling. Decoction differs from infusion with boiling water in that it involves a continuing heat source, keeping the water boiling. Even when you start with boiling water, the water stays below the boiling point during the whole infusion process (and quickly cools further). Decoction is often a longer process than infusion, because it involves extraction of substances that infusion is unable to fully bring out.

The term "decoction" is rarely used in the context of beverages. Some beverages, however, do involve continuous boiling in their preparation, but the term is less commonly used even in these cases.

What effect does decoction vs. infusion have?

Decoction allows for extraction of more substances from whatever plant is being decocted or infused. However, it also allows for more aromas to escape into the air, especially when compared to making a covered infusion.

Decoction is more often used for roots, for extracting chemicals that diffuse slower and are less likely to escape into the air. It tends to be used when the medicinal properties or biological activity of the plant are more important than the flavor or aroma. Decoction is the preferred way of preparing kava, for instance. It is also frequently used in herbal medicine, especially for roots.

Do you use decoction for preparing anything?

I sometimes use decoction as a method of preparing certain herbal teas. One example would be making ginger tea from fresh ginger root: fresh ginger root infuses slowly and you can produce a much more powerful herbal tea by decocting (boiling continuously) the ginger than you can by infusing it, even if you have thinly sliced the root.

Do you ever use decoction for preparing any tea, herbal tea, or blends?

Do you review teas the first time you drink them?

Do you review teas after the first time you drink them? I rarely do. When I do, it's usually only when I have enough tea only for a single cup or single brewing session, such as as when I have a lone tea bag from a commercial brand, or a very small loose-leaf sample.

Sometimes I feel a bit negligent when I'm taking my time. For example, recently I received a package from Sacred Rose, a company that sells herbal tea blends. I have begun to sample their herbal teas, and I will say that I am impressed. However, the package arrived a couple weeks ago, and I have yet to write a single review.

I also still have not reviewed all the teas I bought from Wegmans. Today I published a review of their Tomo Sencha.

Stay tuned; I will review all these teas and more!

Why wait so long?

I see several benefits in waiting to review a tea:

• Sampling multiple times allows you to experiment with brewing method, both so that you can say something about how to brew the tea in your review, and so that you can arrive at what you see as the best brewing method to bring out the qualities of the tea you enjoy most.
• Since mood and environmental factors affect your perception of tea, sampling a tea on different days, at different times of day, and in different contexts helps you to get a sense of what about your experience is really about the tea itself, and what was more a function of your mood or environment.
• Many teas, especially unfamiliar ones, I do not fully enjoy the first time I try them. Tea is often an acquired taste, and I like to give myself an opportunity to acquire the taste of a new and unfamiliar tea before writing a review. There are some teas that I've outright disliked the first time I tried them, that I came to absolutely love in the end.

For me, this process sometimes works best if I space out my drinking of the teas over a couple oy weeks. How about you? How much do you wait and experiment before writing your tea reviews?

More on Brewing Temperature

I see a lot of figures on brewing temperature. I was reading a post on tea happiness about brewing temperature, and that post referenced an older post about brewing temperature on World of Tea. Another page I found is TeaSource's page on Preparing Tea. I found myself wanting to quibble a bit with some of the advice presented on these pages (and virtually everywhere). I of course maintain RateTea's page on Brewing Tea.

My main quibble is that I think people overemphasize exact temperatures, and underestimate personal taste preferences, experimentation, and the process of learning. I also think, at least compared to what I like, which is likely not what you like, is that I have found people tend to chronically under-estimate optimal brewing temperatures. On average, I like steeping it hot, although there's one exception that I'll mention below.



Yes, I have used a beverage thermometer to check my temperatures. But you do not need one if you just want to drink tea or brew it for others! The only reason that I bought (and use) this thermometer is so that I can get an objective read on temperature for sharing with others when I write reviews or post on this blog on on other sites.

Some Observations I've Made about Brewing Temperature:

Figures are given in Fahrenheit; a useful tool in case you're curious may be this Fahrenheit to Celsius Converter.

• The temperature of the vessel you're pouring into is important in determining the brewing temperature: if you don't warm it up ahead of time, the water will immediately cool down as it enters the vessel.
• Looking at the bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot or kettle can be a reliable way to assess temperature, but only after you've gotten to know each pot. I have two similar-looking Revereware pots, and one of them forms bubbles at a lower temperature than the other; I don't have a good understanding of why. This caused me to brew some green teas with water that was too hot, the first few times I used this pot to heat water. The bubble formation also depends on how I'm heating the pot--I had to relearn the bubbles as I moved and went from a gas to electric stove.
• I find that people tend to underestimate the temperatures required for brewing tea properly, at least, according to my own tastes. I find that this is particularly true of white tea, which I tend to find less sensitive to high temperatures than green tea, but also true of green and oolong tea, and some Darjeeling black tea.
• Green teas I find to be most sensitive to brewing temperatures, and, along with Darjeeling oolongs, the only teas that will ever be outright unpleasant if brewed with water that is too hot. But even then, there are some green teas that are drinkable when brewed with boiling water. One thing that I have read about that I have found rings true in my own experience is that Gyokuro demands lower-temperature water than other green tea. But I find that even with green teas, people's estimates for optimal temperatures seem to be on the low side. I think 160F for a typical green tea is too low, unless you want a very mild cup. 180F is the target I shoot for, but 160 for Gyokuro.
• A lot of oolongs don't taste good to me unless you brew them with boiling or near-boiling water. A lot of sites recommend 190 or a range of 190-200. I think 190 is too low. This has even been true for me of many greener oolongs. Most oolongs, when I brew them at 190, strike me as bland. An exception are Darjeeling oolongs, which I find typically demand a lower temperature, often to the point of being unpleasant or even undrinkable if they're brewed with boiling water. With a Darjeeling oolong I aim for 160-180F for starters.

What happens when the temperature is "wrong" or "off"?

This varies hugely based on both the type of tea and the individual tea. Trends I've noticed:

• Pan-fired green teas often become extremely harsh: bitter, sour, and astringent, if brewed with water that is too hot. The most sensitive teas in this arena have been the ones with a smoky aroma (strong or slight), such as chun mee or gunpowder. Of all the things that can go wrong based on brewing temperature, this one is the worst, as it often renders the cup undrinkable to me.
• Steamed green teas often look different if brewed with water that is too hot. They often obtain an unpleasant "overcooked vegetable" aroma. In my opinion, compared to the pan-fired teas, they are more drinkable when they go wrong in this manner, but some can still be unpleasant or undrinkable.
• Darjeeling oolongs become both harsh and obtain the overcooked vegetable aroma if brewed with water that is too hot. These teas can become highly undrinkable.
• Black and oolong tea brewed with water that is too cool often seems very bland and with a weak, flat aroma. However, it's never undrinkable, just bland.
• Some white tea can obtain the "overcooked vegetable" aroma if brewed with water that is too hot, but some can also be too bland if brewed with water that is too cool.
• A few teas, including green, white, and some oolongs, lose some complexity to their aroma when the water is too hot, even if they do not acquire any unpleasant characteristics. I find that the teas for which this is the case are a tiny minority of the teas that are out there. More often, though, complexity is lost if the water is too cool--the reason to avoid hot water usually is that it results in unpleasant characteristics into the aroma or flavor that you would rather avoid.

What do you think? What are your experiences with brewing temperature? How do they agree with, or deviate from, the mainstream advice you find floating around out there?

Brewing Darjeeling Oolongs

I've been fascinated by the concept of Darjeeling Oolong from the first time I heard of it. In general, I like the idea of separating the style of a tea (as defined by its production process) from the region of production, and this separation is a key driving philosophy behind how I've designed RateTea.

RateTea's listings of oolongs are not a good indicator of the total quantity of global production of teas from different regions, but it is a coarse indicator of the visibility of these varieties of tea in the western world. Ranking the number of teas listed from various regions we see China and Taiwan leading the way, and India is a follow-up, with all but one tea, a lone Nilgiri oolong, being produced in Darjeeling. Darjeeling is emerging as a major oolong-producer, at least, among artisan teas.

But I've found that these teas can be very difficult to brew properly.

How to brew Darjeeling Oolong:

I've heard a lot of critical comments about Darjeeling Oolong, and in fact, I've issued a number of them myself. I have tried a handful now, possibly because I seek them out, out of curiosity, and more often than not, I'm disappointed. But I have made one key observation:

Darjeeling oolongs are best brewed with water significantly below boiling point, as one would brew a green or white tea.

I've found this to be true even of some of the surprisingly dark oolongs, but especially true of the lighter ones, which seem to make up most of what comes out of the Darjeeling region. Why? Unlike some green teas, I find that Darjeeling oolongs rarely become bitter, sour, or astringent. However, I find they often acquire an unpleasant vegetal aroma, like overcooked broccoli, if steeped with water that is too hot. Even when brewed properly though, they are still highly vegetal, but at least, for my tastes, I strongly prefer them when brewed with a lower water temperature.

How about you?

Does this post resonate with your experiences and your tastes? Do you find Darjeeling oolongs to be picky about brewing temperature, and to require lower temperatures than Chinese or Taiwanese oolongs (which can often handle boiling water just fine, even if they are best brewed with water a little below boiling).