Tea Brewing: When is the tea ready?

I recently came across an article on the blog The Leaf: "How will I know when my tea ready?".
The article is on a bit of philosophy and culture on brewing tea. I especially like the lines "There is an interaction between people and tea when they brew tea. Through this diligent practice, one can have a deep understanding of tea." (page 2)

It made me think of my tea testing and how stringent I am on how long I brew the tea. I find this has resulted in a disconnect between myself and the tea, I guess not enough experience and practice. In the past, I'd scoop the amount of leaf I "felt" was right, I would brew the tea without thinking about the time too much and pouring when I "felt" it was ready. Recently I've been tea tasting quite a bit to become familiar with teas I don't usually drink, but found that I haven't sat down to just enjoy and relax with one of my favorite teas, to connect again.

Goal for tonight: sit down to a nice pot of tea and let it steep until I "feel" it is ready, then enjoy!

Flavored Tea Blending

I enjoy cooking and baking, I think because of the myriad of flavors that can come together to make something sensational and look extremely appetizing. But also because of the process that you must go through to create something from scratch. It can turn out horribly wrong or can be something great that you can take pride in. When I think of tea, I'd love to go through the process of making my own tea from plucking the leaf to roasting, but that dream is nowhere close to becoming a reality!

So aside from quitting my job and moving to Taiwan (my favorite tea growing country) to beg a tea master to train me, I have for a while thought about creating my own flavored tea blends. Blending or flavoring tea with fruits, flowers and herbs is not uncommon and has a long history. In China, chrysanthemum flowers and rose buds are typically blended with tea, mint is a common blending ingredient (first introduced in the 18th century, Moroccan mint green tea is one popular example), and Earl Grey tea (black tea scented or flavored with bergamot oil) is an example popular in Britain. Now, in 2011 you see a multitude of blended/flavored teas! Teas blended with fruits, flowers, spices, and other ingredients are readily available on the market. With all these options, I think it attracts more people to drinking tea.

However, getting back to my original statements about cooking and baking, I have started to think of blending my own flavored teas...the process of experimenting with different flavors and trying out different ratios to find the perfect balance is half the fun; then drinking the tea that I just blended - satisfying. But, don't get me wrong (to those purists), to me, no tea is more beautiful and satisfying than a wonderfully fragrant and naturally sweet oolong that is not blended with other ingredients - I just happen to think blending teas could be fun.

So, onto some guidelines that I have come across and will be following if you, like I, are interested in blending your own flavored teas:

1. Many commercially made flavored teas use flavored oils to provide enough of the flavor and the bits of fruit and other components are usually there for aesthetic reasons. So, you may have to add more of your tea blend per cup or a greater ratio of ingredients to tea to get more flavor.
2. Steep time is important. Often pure tea is steeped on average 3 mins, but some ingredients need a longer time to steep and release their flavors. A second steep may yield more flavor from your added ingredients.
3. Using a strong tea will over-power the other flavors
4. If making a batch (especially for gift-giving), consider the size and weight of the added ingredients. Over time, heavier ingredients can settle to the bottom of a bag resulting in a non-uniform tea blend. When, you scoop some out, you might not get the right proportion of ingredients as you did in your tasting/testing.


More to come on my experiments...and if anyone would like to share their experience, please do!

Brewing Iced Tea: Cold vs Hot Brewing

It is a beautiful sunny day in Toronto and I thought I'd make some iced tea. This also came to mind because I recently purchased some Agave syrup just because I have never tried it before. Agave (or Blue Agave is the type I got) is a plant grown in Mexico that had become popular because it is often used as a vegan alternative to honey, is sweeter than white table sugar (1.4 - 1.6x) so you use less to sweeten your beverage/foods, and is low glycemic. However, over the last 2 years, there has been a backlash against this product because it's composition is high in fructose. Many are concerned about high fructose corn syrup and it's association to obesity and diabetes and it is believed that agave syrup (which contains a higher percentage of fructose than high fructose corn syrup) has the same association with these diseases.

Because I believe in eating in moderation and I would only use a small amount of agave syrup to sweet cold drinks, I decided to make some iced tea to try out this syrup.

I previously tried making a Pouchong/Baozhong) 包種茶 iced tea the cold brew method way and it turned out quite nice. However, it takes longer and some think you can not get the full taste of the tea from the cold brewing method. Others like the cold brew method because it supposedly doesn't have any bitter taste to it and there is less caffeine. To experiment, I'm going to make iced tea both ways with Pouchong tea and compare.

The dry leave above. Dark green twisted leaves with some brown. This tea is a slightly oxidized oolong tea that looks similar to green tea but doesn't have the same taste profile and has a more floral aroma characteristic of oolongs.

Cold brew:

Dry tea leaves = 4 grams
Water (filtered) = 12oz or 1.5cups
Leave to steep = 12 hrs (in the fridge, glass jar, lid)

Hot brew:
Now, this is the tricky part, because you'll need to cool it down quickly with ice, the ice will dilute the liquid. Thus, you need to make a more concentrated liquid.
Dry leaves: 4grams
Slightly cooler than boiling water: 5oz.
Steep time: 3 mins.

The result:
The class on the right is the hot brew. After brewing, I added 5 cube of ice to a drinks shaker and poured the hot tea in. Added a little more than 1 tsp of agave syrup and shook. Poured into a glass, that is why it is slightly foamy.

Cold brew and hot brew liquid colour were the same, a greenish-yellow colour. Clear. Both were floral smelling.
Now for the tasting...the flavour of the tea was light, floral, sweet, slightly melony and I enjoyed it much. However, the winner is:

Hot brew iced tea!
It provided a more rounded and fuller flavour, the cold brew was a little flat.
The agave sugar also masked the tea flavour in the cold brew a bit more as it tasted more flavourful prior to adding the syrup.

I will admit that I think maybe the concentration used was on the light side as oolong tea usually requires more tea to water ratio than other teas so I would increase the tea leaves to maybe 5-6g and try it again. But, I think hot brewing is the way to go!

To go with my tea, I had a green onion pineapple cake. If you don't know, pineapple cake 鳳梨酥 is very popular in Taiwan. It has a pineapple filling (somewhat like a jam but dryer/thicker) wrapped with a pastry crust or "cake". This version was a little savory with the addition of green onion but still had a bit of sweetness from the pineapple. The cake part (that wrapped the filling) was buttery. It's a nice snack but I think paired with the paochong tea, it was ok. Not an excellent pairing but good. Maybe the buttery cake was a little too rich for the tea? But, the onion flavour did go nicely with the flowery, sweet tea.

Hot brewing iced tea provides a better tasting iced tea!

Green Tea: Good for the Skin

A recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition "online" (by Heinrich, U et al.) indicates drinking green tea is good for the skin. The abstract is available but to read the full journal article you must pay or have a subscription.

This study was a 12 week, double-blind randomized placebo controlled study. Double-blind meaning the participants and study coordinators did not know whether they received the green tea or placebo. There were 60 female participants and those that got the green tea beverage were provided with 1402 mg/d of catechins. This could translate to about 5 cups of green tea per day (depending on the type of green tea leaves) - an amount that I could see myself drinking but possibly not everyday. However, while living in Taiwan, there were tea stands selling tea drinks (hot and cold) on practically every corner and these would often be about 2 cups of tea per serving. In the summer I would easily drink 5 cups of green tea per day.

Above are pics of a bottle of green tea sold in Taiwan, but can also be found in North America in Asian supermarkets. The back of the bottle shows the amount of catechins per bottle and although blurry, I believe it is about 560mg.

But, back to the results...the study reported that the group receiving the green tea beverage had better UV protection as well as increased blood flow and oxygen delivery to the skin. A positive effect on skin elasticity, roughness, density, and water homeostasis was also found. I have not read the full article but this sounds very promising and I hope to get my hands on a copy soon! Women spend thousands of dollars on skin care products and cosmetics to have better looking skin and a more youthful appearance, so if these results can be shown again in larger studies, drinking tea everyday as an adjunct to our skin care rituals would be a benefit...beauty from within.