My tea is COLD by the time it's ready

While intrepidly exploring rec.food.drink.tea, Andrew rolled initiative and posted the following:

When making tea in a pot, it helps to warm the tea with hot water first and then steep the tea. You're losing a lot of heat right into the pot.

Second, I always wrap a towel (or a tea cozy) around the pot for additional insulation.

Good points raised so far. Also...

What ratio of loose tea to water are you using? Too little leaf makes you wait longer to get extraction, allowing more cooling.

How's your water temperature? Most folks use water close to boiling for blacks, and considerably cooler for greens (140-180 F depending on type).

And be sure your loose tea is not too old or gone stale...you might wait forever to get any flavor out of it -- it'll be tepid by then and the flavor will be poor anyway.

Other thoughts:

A tea cozy covering your teapot will retain more heat.

This is far-fetched, but if you live in a cool climate, cold ambient air might cool your pot sooner than you'd like. Don't set the pot directly on cold marble or granite counter-tops. Still, it shouldn't cool so fast that you can't make decent tea.

Joe

Two great suggestions that will most likely solve the problem, but here are a couple of other things to consider.

If you have to steep tea leaves long enough for the tea to become cold, perhaps your water wasn't hot enough to begin with.

If you have to steep tea longer than 3-5 minutes (I refer to black teas such as assams, keemuns, etc.), it's possible that you're skimping on the leaves. If you don't use enough, you'll probably get a full-bodied beverage eventually, but it may indeed be cold by that time. Try adding a bit more leaf to your pot.

Some teapots just don't retain heat well, even with a cozy. I have one pot that I can't even pour without using something to protect my hand from the heat of the handle. A quality teapot is an investment that will pay for itself again and again. Then again, I have a few teapots (I collect them) that were very inexpensive, yet do a wonderful job of retaining heat.

I hope you can find a remedy that will end your dilemma.

Tee

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Andrew,

I presume you want to drink black tea, which is brewed and drunk hot. A couple ideas: First, use more leaf so you can bring the steep time down and thus limit cooling. Second, get yourself a covered ceramic mug such as those available in Chinese shops. Third, make sure your mug has relatively thick walls. Fourth, try to find one of those covered mugs with an infuser system. (Infuser is a second vessel with holes or slits that fits right into the mug. You put your tea leaves into the infuser, the infuser into the mug, the water over the tea leaves, and when ready just lift the infuser out leaving the tea brew in the mug.) Fifth, pre-heat your mug before you make your tea. These things should yield you a fine cup of hot brew. (Green teas are not happy as hot as you describe and are therefore not for you, unless you want to play with teas not so hot -- like my idea.)

Luck. Michael

Perhaps purchasing a large mouth thermos and using that in place of a teapot would aid your endeavor.

Cheers,

Ned

If you're making one cup of tea, first pour boiling water into the cup to warm it up, and pour the water away.

Then make your tea using one of these:

It has a handy lid to help keep the heat in.

So what's a rule of thumb here, does most everyone go by a 'teaspoon per cup and one for the pot'?

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I think a teaspoon per cup and one for the pot works admirably well. As for the "rule of thumb," according to old English law, it goes like this: It is not legal to beat your wife with an implement whose diameter is wider than your thumb. Or at least, so I've heard.

BTW, I completely agree with the bit about not skimping on leaf. I've found leaf skimping never to pay off.

Michael

Michael

I do that with black teas. Gung-fu requires more tea. When making small cups of green tea I don't add extra.

Then put the saucer on top of the cup to limit evaporation, the main source of heat loss if the cup has been pre-warmed.

-DM

Using high quality black teas in that ptoportion would yield very dark tea. The African, Indian and Chinese black teas which I use require different amounts according to leaf size and variety. For something like blue sapphire I have to use three times the amount of the African black teas to get the same strength.

JJ

I am also relatively new to tea. I'm a lifelong coffee drinker, and never would have guessed that I would enjoy tea. I didn't know what I was missing. I drink both green and black, but particularly enjoy black tea with milk and sugar. Earl Gray is a favorite currently.

I have been toying around with various methods for about a year. I have purchased a couple of teapots from Bodum, and have had the same frustrations you have experienced. Recently I hit upon a method that has worked tremendously well.

First, instead of a teapot I use a stainless steel (non-reactive)

2-quart sauce pan with a good-fitting lid. I bring the water to temperature (boiling for black tea). When it's ready, I take it off the heat, dump in the tea and pop on the lid. I then let it brew covered for the preferred time (normally 3-5 minutes). By the way, this works with both bagged tea and loose leaf.

In the meantime, I have microwaved 4-6 oz of water to boiling, and use it to warm up an insulated carafe -- in my case a Nissan (by Thermos) stainless steel carafe. I pour this into the carafe, put on the lid and let it warm up. If you don't do this you won't maintain the temp when you put the tea in.

When the tea is ready, I dump the water out of the carafe and pour in the tea. If I have used bagged tea, it's a simple matter of pulling them out. If it's loose leaf, I use a funnel fixed with a white paper coffee filter and pour the tea through it into the carafe. This captures both the tea leaves and fine sediment. If you don't like that a fine mesh strainer would also work. Pop on the lid and you have a carafe of steaming hot tea that will stay that way for several hours. The first time I tried this it was PERFECT. The last cup was as good as the first.

This is my everyday method of making tea. I know it is not as elegant as a formal teapot. I love the clear glass pots that show off the beautiful color of brewed tea. But for practical purposes this is a great, simple way for everyday tea drinking. I am planning on buying a pot and warmer combo (I've got my eye on the Jenaer Museum teapot with warmer) for special occasions, but for now this will do just fine. I wish I had figured it out long ago.

One note -- I reserve one of these carafes for coffee, and another for black tea. I have been using a teapot for my green for the time being. But it's probably a bad idea to use a single carafe for both, especially crossover between coffee and teas. I got my carafe on ebay for $17, less than half the retail price.

Try this, it really works well.

i steep my tea in a pot w/a removable filter. after putting in the tea and pouring the hot water over the tea i put the lid on until the tea is done steeping, then i remove the lid, remove the filter and replace the lid...never have had a problem w/the water losing it's temperature. hope this helps

Speddie I've learned that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

I picked one of these up at the store today, and it kinda stinks:

The filter that was in the box had a much tighter mesh than the picture implies and didn't allow water to flow very well. They must know that, because the base isn't made of mesh, it's a piece of plastic with 1-2 mm holes in it. Which let out chunks of tea leaf, pretty much defeating the purpose of having a filter.

--Blair "It's going back."

On Sun, 30 May 2004 04:41:10 GMT, Blair P. Houghton tripped the light fantastic, then quipped:

I like my Yoyo mug for brewing a larger-leaf tea; the holes at the bottom don't present a problem. However, when using a smaller leaf, a tiny bit of the leaf makes its way into the cup, but I don't mind a few dregs now and then, as long as the tea is choice. Besides, the leaves give me something to "read".

If you think about it, why do you suppose it's called a Yoyo? Maybe Bodum arrived at its name from watching teabag dunkers' up and down motion...not unlike a yo-yo. Just my theory. The yo-yo action does help agitate the leaves somewhat, allowing them to unfurl more than they would sitting in an infuser with a tight mesh.

It's not perfect for every occasion, but it more than serves its purpose when used accordingly. Tee