Tea (chá - 茶 )

□ Types  □ Brewing  □ Purchasing  □ Caffeine and Tea  □ Other Considerations

The world of tea is one to be discovered, but beware, embark on this journey that seduces the senses and there is no turning back.  The variety of subtle yet distinct flavours offers endless exploration, allowing you to discover, on a daily basis, riches from China, Japan, India, England, Africa and more.  Explore, explore, explore…

Tea is a natural beverage that is known to benefit health.  Besides being the world<s most popular beverage, it has fostered practises and ceremonies that benefit the body and the spirit.  Commonly used to stimulate and aid digestion, tea has still more benefits.  Fresh, quality tea contains antioxidants, essential oils, minerals and vitamins; it has diuretic properties that help in the elimination of toxins; it favours the release of excess fat; and it also helps reduce glucose and cholesterol in the blood.  Research now indicates that the tea may reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Chinese legends states that tea was discovered 4700 years ago by the second Emperor of China, Shen Nung.  He was considered a skilled ruler who was a patron of science and the arts.  One summer, upon visiting a distant province, he stopped to rest under a tree while a servant boiled water for him to drink (customary hygienic precaution at the time); a leaf fell from the tree and landed in his hot water.  Being a scientist, Shen Nung decided to try the brew and found it very refreshing.

Types of Tea

The main categories of Chinese tea are Green, White, Wulong and Red.  No matter the types, all teas are made from the same plant, Camellia sinensis.  What distinguishes one tea from the next is the degree of fermentation (oxidation) that the leaf undergoes.  Green tea is without fermentation, red tea is fully fermented and wulong is partially fermented.

Top

Brewing Tea

Brewing tea from loose leaves is simple and straightforward.  There are a multitude of acceptable ways to make tea, so fell free to experiment and let your palate guide you.  Below are a few guidelines to get you started.

1.  Start with fresh water:  Tea can only be as good as the water with which it is brewed.  Use spring or filtered water that has a natural mineral content.  The fresher the water, the higher the oxygen content, and the better the taste of the final product.  Distilled water is not recommended because it lacks the proper mineral and oxygen content; it produces a flat, bland infusion.  Do not use hot tap water, water that contains chlorine or water that has boiled for a long time.

2.  Measure the quantity of leaves: Generally, 3 grams of dry leaves should be used for every 6 ounces of water (3 grams of tea is approximately 1 rounded teaspoon).  When brewing lighter teas, such as whites or large leaf wulongs, use up to 2 teaspoons.

3.  Preheat and rinse: It is important to preheat your pot and the tea by rinsing them with hot water; this way the water for the brewing process doesn’t drop in temperature when poured into the pot.  This process also allows for the leaves and pot to be rinsed of impurities.

4. Select the Proper Water Temperature:  White, green, and green wulong teas should not be prepared with boiling water. Boiling water will cook the leaves and destroy the flavour as well as the nutrient value.  The finer the tea, the coolerthe water should be. To brew fine green tea without a thermometer, let boiling water cool for at least three minutes before rinsing and infusing the leaves.

Generally, green teas taste best when brewed at 60-85°C.  Chinese green teas tend to taste best when brewed at 70-85°C.  Japanese green teas taste best when prepared with 60-70°C water.  Red, dark wulong and herbal teas should be prepared with water that is near boiling.  For these teas, let the water cool for 30 seconds to a minute.

5.  Steep for the proper time:  Until you gain experience brewing a specific tea, steep it for a minute or two, and then taste.  When the brew tastes right, you must stop the brewing process, either by serving it completely or pouring it into a second pot (serving pot).  the use of a tea leaf filter can be handy for removing the leaves and then avoid using two pots.  Over-steeping produces a harsh, bitter beverage.

Tea brewed from whole leaves allows for multiple infusions, each containing subtle yet noticeably distinct flavours.  Most teas can and should be infused a number of times, simply by adding fresh hot water and increasing the steeping time slightly (30 seconds for each subsequent infusion).  You can repeat the process until the flavour fades.  Total brewing time depends on the leaf size; the smaller the leaf, the faster the tea infuses.

General 1^st infusion guidelines to get you started:

Top

Purchasing

Freshness: Tea leaves are greatly affected by light, air and moisture. For longest life, leaves should be stored in a cool, dry place, in a sealed opaque container.  Tea absorbs odours very easily, it is important not to store near strong smelling foods or products.

To fully benefit from the properties of green tea it needs to be fresh. If you drink much tea and can afford the first or second flush (picking) of the year, the taste and quality are far superior.  As a green tea ages, it loses its antioxidant benefits and gets bitter to the taste.  An older green tea will generate a pinkish brew which is a sign that is has fermented.

The same criteria can be applied to high quality wulong, but freshness is of less importance, since it is purchased for its mild fermentation.  Red teas can be stored for long periods of time. Some red teas like Pu-erh or Tuo-cha are aged for several years.  The older they are, the better the flavour.

Whole Leaves: When purchasing tea, it is best to select whole leaves for several reasons.  Firstly, whole leaves expose less surface to air and light.  When a tea leaf is broken and is exposed to air, the antioxidants and essential oils deteriorate, thus reducing the major health benefits.  Secondly, it is easier to visually evaluate the quality of a leaf if it is intact.  Thirdly, when whole leaves are infused, the flavour and nutrients are released gradually, making it easier to control the rinsing and brewing process.

Caffeine and Tea

*Tea contains caffeine and shouldn’t be consumed less than 2 hours before bedtime.  It should be avoided by children and by women who are either pregnant or breastfeeding.

For many tea varieties, it is best to discard an initial short infusion and this is so for several reasons: tea is not always dried in ideal locations and rinsing removes any impurity that may have deposited onto it; it also warms the pot and allows for the leaves to open.  Most caffeine from tea is released in the first 30 seconds of brewing and by discarding the first brew, caffeine content is drastically reduced.

Most beneficial nutrients of tea are liberated slowly over the first 5 minutes of brewing.  Discarding the first infusion doesn’t overly affect the overall nutrient levels.

If your goal is to clean and rinse the leaf, 10 seconds can be sufficient.  If you goal is to reduce the caffeine content, 30 seconds are necessary.  This initial infusion can be performed with less water then the subsequent fillings.

Top

Other Considerations

Bags?: Tea bags are convenient, but generally contain low quality leaves that are  powdered or broken, called fanning.  It is difficult to evaluate the quality or state of the leaf when it is in a bag, and since the leaves are usually broken, the brewing process happens too quickly, making it difficult to rinse the leaf from impurities without discarding most of the nutrients.  It is therefore more difficult to control the flavour and the caffeine content of the brew.

As tea gains in popularity in the West, there is more and more availability of tea bags containing whole leaves, but the selection is still poor.

In some cultures, tea bags are nicknamed “floor sweeps”, because they may contain the leftovers that haven’t made the grade.

Region of growth: Different geographic regions have different climates, soils and humidity factors that all contribute to the overall nature of the leaf. Most regions pride themselves on the uniqueness of their product.

Time of Year: There are a number of harvest periods in a year, often referred to as Flushes (Spring Flush, 2nd Flush, and Autumn Flush). Each flush offers a distinct flavour; for green teas, the first flush is considered higher quality.

Picking method: The method of picking and processing the leaves changes the quality of the final product.  Hand picking and processing is least damaging.  When tea is damaged or broken from rough mechanical handling, oxidation and fermentation occurs rapidly which in turn degrades the nutrient levels as well as the flavour.  When the leaves are broken one is not capable of discriminating between the high-quality tip leaves and the coarser leaves toward the bottom of the branch.

Proximity to other crops: When tea crops are located in proximity to, or share the same soil as other crops, such as fruit or flower, interesting subtleties can come out in the brew.

Top