Tea

For those who drink tea regularly, we suggest that you stock several different varieties of tea rather than a large supply of just one. With tea, no matter how enjoyable, may lose some of its appeal after many cups in a row. Breaking habitual consumption with new varieties or styles can greatly add to the overall enjoyment of your favorite tea.

Even when properly stored, a tea’s flavor will change or fade in character over time. As the loss is gradual, it may go unnoticed until you receive a fresh batch and rediscover the lost subtle flavors, aromas or mouthfeel. For optimum freshness, it’s recommend that you purchase an amount that you can consume within three months.

So, go through your cupboards and clean out those old boxes and tins of tea and buy some new ones if you desire the best tea experience possible.

Quantity of Tea

For consistency with loose leaf teas, we recommend measuring 2¼ grams of dry leaf for each six ounces of water. For those who prefer to measure the leaf by volume, we following these general guidelines:

One of the joys of brewing loose leaf tea is that the strength can be adjusted according to personal preference. Remember that tea goes a long way, and a measuring teaspoon is considerably smaller than the capacity/size of an average American dining teaspoon.

Storing Tea

Tea in general should be stored at room temperature in an air-tight container, away from moisture and light. Store large quantities of tea in a master container and keep the rest in a small dispensing container for everyday use. Each time a container is opened; air exchange takes place and slowly reduces the tea flavor. By minimizing the amount exposed to air, you can greatly prolong the life, flavors and aromas of the tea.

For loose leaf teas, stainless steel or glazed ceramic caddies are recommended for storage. We do not recommend clear or plastic containers that may impart flavors into the tea and not completely seal or prevent moisture from being introduced.

Preparing Tea

Brewing a good cup of tea is quite simple. Fresh water and a proper teapot are both essential to getting that perfect cup. If your source of water is suspect, try using bottled or filtered water. The subtle flavors of many teas can be destroyed by water that contains heavy concentrations of minerals, impurities, chloride or fluorides. Certain geographic areas have hard or soft-water, these include heavy concentrations of calcium and other hard minerals. High calcium levels may cause a thin film to form on the surface of a cup of tea.

The correct water temperature is important when producing quality tea. Most black teas should be brewed with water that has been brought to a rolling boil. Thoroughly preheating the pot will further ensure a high brewing temperature and full flavor extraction.

While many brewing instructions will say to measure a teaspoon of tea for each cup and an extra “one for the pot,” a small preheated teapot generally does not require this extra scoop. Begin with one teaspoon for each six ounces of water and adjust according to taste.

The optimum steeping time depends on the type of tea. Because most teas yield a pale brew, steep by time and not color. Too-short an infusion will result in a thin, insipid tea. Extended steeping will yield a bitter tea with an overpowering level of tannin. When brewing tea for more than one serving, use an infuser or strainer to remove the tea leaves and avoid over-steeping.

Water Temperature

Most black teas and some Oolong teas should be prepared with boiling water. Green teas, white teas, Jasmine teas, and lighter Oolongs should be steeped with water no hotter than 180°F. Very fine Gyokuro is often best when steeped with water closer to 140°F.

Steeping Time

The general rule for steeping is the smaller the leaf size, the shorter the brewing time. Use this table as a starting point:

Kung Fu (Gong Fu) Tea

Kung Fu (Gong Fu) is a traditional method of tea preparation, used for centuries in China.

To make Gong Fu style tea, put tea leaves in a small pot or cup and rinse briefly with hot water. Steep with fresh water for one minute and serve in small, half-ounce cups. Reuse the leaves for several steepings.

Iced Tea

Nearly any loose tea can be used to make iced tea. To get clear, delicious tea we recommend the cold steeping method.

Place the tea leaves in a clean jug and add the appropriate amount of cold water. Let stand in the refrigerator overnight (or for at least six hours). Remove the leaves and enjoy.

Common Leaf Variations

Leaf Style – BOP to SFTGFOP

You may notice long strings of letters appended to the names of India teas and acronyms stenciled on the tea chests, sample packets, and related documentation, These acronyms identify the originating tea estates and brokers.

Orange Pekoe, abbreviated OP, is perhaps the most misunderstood of all. Contrary to popular opinion and the marketing efforts of many, Orange Pekoe does not refer to a particular flavor, variety, or even quality of a tea. It is nothing more than a designation of leaf size, resulting from the sifting of finished tea.

During the manufacturing process, the leaves are bruised, withered, and dried. This handling creates a product with leaf particles of varying sizes. The final step is to sift the production batch into smaller lots of uniform leaf size. A lot that is poorly sorted, and comprised of leaf particles of widely varying sizes is called choppy.

Teas designated OP consist of larger leaf particles or whole leaves that will not pass through a sieve of a particular gauge. BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe) designates a grade that is finer than OP. Grades finer than BOP are labeled PF (Pekoe Fannings). Dust is the smallest grade sold and is reserved primarily for use in teabags.

Additional letters are added to this root acronym to more fully describe the leaf style and appearance. The chart at lower left lists some of the common variations.

Tea and Caffeine

All real teas are made from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, a caffeine-producing bush. On average, a cup of tea has 40-50 mg of caffeine, which is approximately half the caffeine content in a cup of coffee.

Caffeine content is not related to the level of fermentation (oxidation), so white, green, oolong, and black teas made from the same variety of Camellia sinensis will have essentially the same level of caffeine in the dry leaf. But this factoid can be misleading.

The processes used to produce most black teas may play a factor in the caffeine extraction rate due to the crushing of the leaf cells during manufacture. The caffeine extraction from unprocessed leaf (white tea) is theoretically slower than for the highly processed (crushed cell) leaf. Also, china varietals (including those grown in Japan) have less caffeine than assamica varietals, further explaining why green and white teas tend to show lower caffeine levels when evaluated scientifically.

Caffeine Extraction during Steeping

Part of the enjoyment of tea is the mild stimulating effect of its caffeine. In fact, William Ukers (All About Tea, Volume 1) states rather directly that without caffeine, the popularity of tea would be greatly diminished. That being said, those who are concerned about their level of caffeine intake, and those who have been advised against it by their doctor, often turn to decaffeinated teas as a solution. But the decaffeination process for tea tends to result in compromised flavor, and the finest teas are never decaffeinated.

There has been much discussion recently on the  process  of  removing  caffeine  from  tea  by discarding  the  first  potful  following  a  brief steeping. The second steeping will, by all accounts, result in a reduced caffeine level. More precisely, can the caffeine level be reduced by as much as 80%, and how long must the first steeping be to achieve this level of decaffeination. The earliest known credible reference to this decaffeination method appeared in the French language version of Paris-based Betjeman & Barton’s tea catalog, published in 1989. The level of scientific support for this decaffeination concept is unknown, but it was based on the extraction characteristics of caffeine in hot water compared to the extraction characteristics of flavor components.

Detractors to this concept have shown evidence that the claim for significant caffeine removal by pre-steeping is a myth. But, unfortunately, such arguments are often based on limited data. One recent argument was based on the interpolation of three data points for caffeine extraction: 69% at five minutes, 92% at ten minutes, and 100% at fifteen minutes. Since 100% of any solid cannot be extracted in solutions of less than infinite volume and for an infinite time interval, you may question the precision of the third data point. Nonetheless, you can glean some information from this data. By adding the most accurate of all data points to the supplied set of three, (i.e., that 0% caffeine would be extracted at 0 minutes), one can fit a simple Bézier curve to the four data points, as done at the right (red arc). This curve suggests, by extrapolation, that only 23% of the caffeine would be extracted in one minute, while 39% would be extracted in two minutes. Note that this varies from the figures of 18% and 32% from the author’s data, but still, the extraction is less than 50% even at two minutes.


William Ukers (All About Tea) presents another set of data. His study compares the extraction of caffeine after a 5-minute infusion (3.6%) against a 1-hour boiling of tea leaves (4.8%). This suggests a 75% extraction at five minutes, yielding a substantially different curve (green arc). One can extrapolate a 36% extraction in one minute.

Another study adds further confusion to the mix. In an article entitled Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment, Huiling Lianga, Yuerong Liang, Junjie Donga, et. al. present the results of research conducted at the Tea Research Institute, Zhejiang University. Briefly, they conclude that for unrolled green tea 83% of the caffeine is removed in three minutes, while 95% of the tea catechins are retained! They conclude that, “the hot water treatment is a safe and inexpensive method for decaffeinating green tea.” This method is not recommended for rolled teas (including blacks), as too much of the flavor components will be extracted in three minutes as well.

RE: http://www.uptontea.com/store/InfoIndex.asp

We have added a new resource to the Tea Education section of the site: Growing your own tea!. It contains information about growing tea from a variety of sources including: Leaves, Seeds, Fruit, Flowers, and Roots. You can utilize the resource here: http://communitybrewingcenter.com/education/tea/growing-your-own-tea/