How to prepare Chinese tea for more
advanced user?
I want to give my own spin on Alex Schroeder's take
on how to prepare Chinese tea. Not that
he said anything wrong, I think it's a
very good starting point, but I'd like to
share my own experience (mostly to put
to word what I had in mind for years)
Water temperature
Each tea will have it's own temperature
where the flavor will be maximised. Not
only each tea, but each season will vary
quite a lot. I find it important to try
things out with different tea. What
Alex describe is a good starting point,
the 'safe' spot for tea, but some tea
will benefit from more heat, and different
length of steeping. This is why I prefer
to buy the same tea, in bigger quantity,
from the same provider. It gives you
more time to experiment.
Burning your tea, or steeping it in too
warm of water or for too long, is and
essential error you'll make at one point,
to learn how to brew your tea. If you've
smoke tobacco in a pipe, or cigars, you know
that you can ruin the experience by applying
too much heat. A cigar can be ruin in the first
few puffs by pulling to hard on it. Something
burns and then the taste never gets back to
what it could be.
The same thing happens with tea. Too much heat
and the taste change and the experience is lost.
At the same time, not enough heat and the tea
won't offer all of its flavour. Some teas
will benefit from being 'burnt' as they
have a very light taste and you don't
really get any benefit from it.
In that sense, if you want to experiment with
higher quality teas, it's important to have a
steady source of tea, directly from the farms,
or from a reseller who works with the tea farm
directly.
In order to get the right temperature, I
put the boiling water in a secondary container,
which is the same size of my tea pot. I let it
sit for a moment then put it in the tea pot.
On the first steep I cool it longer,
the more steeps I keep the water hotter. The
last few steep, I put the boiling water
directly in the tea pot to get the last
bit of taste from the leafs.
The shape of the leaf of the tea will also
affect how you apply the water. For example,
a rolled leaf tea, the first steep won't generate
much flavor as the leaves are all stuck, but
as the leaf unfurl more flavor will come out.
So the first steep might be longer, then
the second steep a little shorter for
instance.
Baked tea leaves, like silver needles, will
give out most of their taste on the first
steep for example.
The quality of tea will also change the number
of steeps you can do with your tea. I find that
high mountain tea will offer more flavour
with multiple steep. The taste and the effect
will change. But as Alex mentioned, sometime
you've had enough of a few steep, so why continue?
Well, I sometime let a tea steep overnight, and
have a cold tea in the morning. I even had tea that
I could use for a few days, each steep offering a
different taste and effect. I like sometime
to simply keep on re-using the same tea leaves
as it provide for a warm beverage without
much caffeine.
Tea Pot
The tea pot you use for your tea will have a
different effect on different teas. Similar to
using a pipe for tobacco actually! When a tea
needs more heat (like black tea) a flatter tea
pot will offer more surface for the tea to be immerse
in hot water. A rounder teapot will have a different
effect on the steeping process. While a GongFu Cha will
give you more heat in less time (these are less
of a tea pot, and more of a tea cup with a lid.)
I generally want to keep one tea pot for one
type of tea. My green tea are in one pot, while
my black and Oolong will be in another. Some
teapot are more porous and keep some of the
taste of your tea. If you drink low quality
herbal tea, this can ruin a teapot. Stuff
like Bengal spice will leave an after taste
in your pot for a long, long time.
Water
With high mountain green tea, the flavour
can be so delicate that you want to use a
very clean water. For the moment, I use
glacier lake water that is filtered and
the boiled. But any type of spring water
will work well. In worst case, having filtered
water so no chlorine taste comes through
will work. Some water with heavy mineral
content will also sometime work well,
but keep that in mind when testing a new
tea, the water will really affect the
taste.
Tea season
To benefit from the highest quality and
taste of tea, you have to drink the tea
in the 6 months after it has been harvested.
Of course with Pu-er, time will benefit,
as you can keep your Pu-er for many years.
Some sort of black tea also seems to
keep for a lot longer. But Korean Black
teas that I've had will also taste better
in the first few months after harvest.
All teas come from the same plant,
Camilla Sinensi. What is different
between all teas is the oxidation and
the fermentation. Oxidation being
the tea leave reacting to oxygen,
darkening or browning, and fermentation
being a biological transformation.
A green tea is said to have the smallest
amount of both oxidation and fermentation.
Where you Pu-er would be at the other
end of the spectrum. Oolong is in between,
while white tea are generally made from
the small leaves, or buds at the end
of a branch. I am not too verse in white
tea, although I've enjoyed it quite a lot.
Many Japanese tea are cooked to stop the
fermenting and oxidation. Although you
retain the tea in that state, the cooking
also have an effect on the tea., making it
more 'fragile' to heat.
A lot of tea from Taiwan are in the Oolong
class, but Oolong can be very green to very
dark. My favorite tea are Green Oolong, and
once you steep that tea, you can see the whole
leaf, with very little damage or oxydation.
I've often associated the Oolong name with
these more earthy metallic taste of tea,
but it's more of a technique to preserve
tea than an actual taste.
Black tea can be both fermented or cooked.
It's a process that makes the tea more stable
on the long term.
Matcha is cooked and them powered. Matcha will
oxidize really quickly once it's open, so it's
important to drink it while it's fresh. The
quality in Matcha can wildly varies, with
the highest quality never leaving Japan.
High end matcha, which goes for hundred
dollars or more for 50gm are also quite
addictive, you almost can live off matcha
only, as you eat the whole plant, you
have a lot more of its nutrients and effect.
So there you have it, it turned out to be
a mini guide to all thing teas! I'll probably
make that an entry in my Wiki and keep on
adding to it!
