Tea preparation

Many people believe boiling water is best for all teas - a notion reinforced by countless store-bought tea packages. This is not the case.

If you consider the seemingly limitless variety of different teas, it doesn’t make sense that they should all be prepared the same way. Unfortunately, it is this great variety that makes it difficult to speak of tea in generalities. Nonetheless, we will attempt here to outline some basic guidelines for the preparation of tea.

First, a word about tea leaves: the veritable teaspoon is not always a good indication of the true amount of tea you’re putting in the pot. 1 tsp of a tightly rolled tea like Jasmine Pearls, for example, is a lot more tea than a 1 tsp of a large-leaf Pu Erh or Bao Zhong.

The ideal serving is about 3 grams of tea leaves per 4-6oz serving of tea, which is good advice if somehow a postage scale were handy. What we recommend instead is practice. The best way to develop expertise in preparing (and tasting) tea is to build up experience (and thus a broad frame of reference) by drinking as much of as many different teas as possible. Following this path, your skills will grow, pot by pot.

For most green teas, we recommend water no hotter than 70°C (158°F), and for the most delicate varieties, a temperature closer to 50°C (122°F).

Despite their name, white teas are a bit heartier than greens and should be brewed somewhere between 75° & 85°C (167°-185°F).

Oolong teas represent the widest range of variety (falling anywhere between green & black in color) and will respond best to water temperatures between 75° and 95°C (167°-203°F).

In general, black teas should be brewed with near-boiling water, but many varieties yield interesting results with lower temperatures and longer steeping times, so feel free to experiment.

Perhaps the heartiest of all tea varieties, Pu Erh is the only one we recommend brewing with boiling water (though not “rolling”, as over-boiled water becomes deoxygenated and flat-tasting).

Water temperature itself is something you’ll probably want to start out gauging with a thermometer, but over time, you’ll learn to recognize signs such as bubbles, sounds, and vapor, which are all indications of how hot the water is.

The most important thing to remember in all this, is that the best way to make perfect tea is the way it tastes best to you.