Newbie questions

Yes, and sometimes.

Yes, they work well.

Upton Tea Imports sells the Chatsford teapots, with infuser baskets, as well as a one-mug system from Chatsford.

The Republic of Tea sells a one-mug basket called the "People's Brew Basket." You can put it into any ceramic coffee mug.

--scott

Try our web site

there are several brewing options from glassware through plastic to ceramics. Maurice

Steve,

Here's my opinion:

Tea POTS are for steeping tea, loose or otherwise. Tea KETTLES are for boiling water to be used for making tea, Jell-O, instant oatmeal, etc.

Many Japanese teapots contain a built-in mesh strainer. Other tea pots (Chinese, English, American; probably others I have no personal knowledge of) may have perforations at the base of the spout which trap the larger tea leaves or are simply wide open. If you don't like tea leaves or particles in your cup, you can pour the tea through a strainer made of perforated metal, mesh, or wicker/bamboo.

I'm not a fan of microwaved water, although it could be psychological. If I have to used nuked water, I'll usually stir it for a few seconds before using it to make tea. Otherwise, I get an unappetizing foam around the edge of the cup as the gasses escape the superheated water.

Hope this helps.

Alan

Okay;

Let me consolidate and add a question from a newbie.

How do I prepare tea at home to maximize the enjoyment of it ( ie steeping loose leaf tea in freshly boiled water for how long? Equipment? etc ).

In my office, I have access to a tea spigot. Hotter than hot tap water, but not boiling. What sort of techniques and equipment would I use to get the best cup tea under those circumstances?

Does cup size or material matter?

With loose leaf tea is there any kind of newbies rule for picking the right amount of leaves?

Thanks in advance

Steve

ive blind-tested myself with 3kinds of water heating, microwaved water is definitely different in taste = flat and not pleasing, waste of good leaf. but i do use it in the office for crappy tea bags...

go to chinatown in your town :P and you'll find alot of tea pots and filters and cups, pots with filters, cups with filters, usually cheaper than other stores, or go to ross and get a french press and try with that for larger volumes.

Part of this depends on the type of tea you're brewing, as well as the style you're brewing it in. Also, how picky you are.

I would also suggest reading the FAQ for this newsgroup, which explains answers to most of your questions (the archives have a lot of opinions on these things as well).

The best cup of tea water will probably be from boiling your own (bottled) water in a kettle of some sort. But in a pinch, you can microwave and / or use the water provided (better if it's spring water or at least dechlorinated).

No matter what, pre-heat your teaware. You don't need boiling water for all kinds of tea - in fact, for many, you want water that's a good bit below boiling (though some people believe that water which has come to a boil once is better). You can't get good tea without good water, but you can make the best of what you have available... I've had decent cups of tea made with office water and sub-optimal teaware.

I have a whole setup (electric kettle, bamboo tea boat / tea ocean, 1,

3, and 5 oz ceramic cups, a small gaiwan, and sometimes a yixing teapot or two) at work, but a bare-bones setup would probably be one of the 3-4 piece Korean or Chinese cups with the built in infuser. I got my gf one from Franchia (Korean tea store in NY), and she uses it every day.

Yes.

Like a lot of your questions, the "answer" to this can be found, but again, it really depends on the type of tea, the style of brewing, your personal preference, and the number of times you want to infuse the same leaves.

w/ Chinese gong-fu tea brewing, you usually want to have the fully opened leaves more or less filling the vessel when you're done. With tightly rolled leaves, this can mean just covering the bottom; with other leaves, you might want to fill it half / 3/4 full.

With English style brewing, you use longer infusion times (1-6 min), and less tea (maybe a tsp to a TBSP).

Anyway, start with less leaf, and use more if your tea is too weak or if you can't get as many infusions as you want. I don't think anyone here is going to give you hard and fast rules, so just experiment. The worst that will happen is your tea will taste like s--t and you'll have to brew another pot.

w

There are several different methods, and I think some of them are discussed in the FAQ. I think the most convenient if you are starting out is to use an infusing basket in a teapot or a mug.

Make green tea that is best made with sub-boiling water.

Some people will tell you that you need a cup big enough so that you can get your nose into it and smell the tea. Some people will tell you that you need a smaller cup for the opposite reason. Your call.

If you are making black tea, the basic rule is one teaspoon of tea per cup of water, plus one for the pot. If you're making a single cup just use a teaspoon.

You will find this is totally incorrect for some kinds of tea and some preparation methods, but it's a good first start.

--scott

A truly well-posed question!

Since half of enjoyment is 90% psychological (and the other half is entirely psychological), whatever works for you is correct. That usually means trying a lot of tea, equipment, brewing methods and scene-settings to find what you like, which then will likely evolve over time.

There's much useful experience and good advice to be had. I'd say that the biggest caution is to ignore most "rules" and other absolutes, few of which stand up to scrutiny. Just don't test the tolerance of green teas to boiling water with a $3/gram Dragon Well, or the purity of $3/lb Dragon Well by drinking it.

The easiest way to understand the equipment, techniques and tastes is by participation. Either find a congenial restaurant or shop owner to give a private or group tasting, or tell this or some other group roughly where you live, and arrange a private meeting off-list.

Mainly, play.

-DM

For that sort of temperature, I recommend green and white, any tea not requiring boiling water.

You could use a Chatsford mug which has a lid and a brew basket (Upton has the best selection, AFAIK):

or

Or, you could use a mug from home or other small teapot and a brew basket with a lid like the Teeli/Finum:

or

Yes.

Yes.

You're welcome. Hope the FAQs and other links help.

"Steve" wrote in news:1175103201.311855.213110 @d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

Googling a bit:

(Bodum cup w. Infuser, Glass Teapot w. Infuser)

Ozzy

Interesting assertion. Reference, please?

Microwaves may disrupt the structure of water - perhaps as much as stirring, though at a different level. But I was not aware that liquid water has *any* structure that's preserved on sensible time-scales, and would be fascinated to know more.

-DM

Microwaved water does taste different than water boiled on the stovetop. I don't know why... my first guess would be more dissolved oxygen left.

--scott

It's just a theory, somewhat supported by science:

Here is what I believe to be true. Water is basically gel with molecules bonding and un-bonding into clusters, generally not more than 25 molecules in size, mostly 4-15. Negative ions promote water molecules forming in clusters. Ionic minerals are what make water taste good--that is, they are minerals with extra electrons which help the water form into clusters around it. One might extrapolate that these mineralized clusters may also bind the 'flavor' of the tea to the water, giving a better tasting brew. When you bombard water with radiation of any kind, it will neutralize some quantity of negative ions in the water, thus removing the water's electrical charge. I don't know if it leaves any of the water or minerals with a positive charge (acidic). If you remove all the negative ions, you get neutral unstructured water with teeny rocks (minerals) in it. It can't possibly be a good conductor of flavor.

Scientists--do you have any thoughts?

I looked at the website you posted.

One, water has absolutely no long-term internal structure. None at all. If its internal strucutre is disturbed, it returns to equilibrium almost instantly. Like the website said, within a few trillionths of a second. Beware of any theories that aren't supported by both authoritative fact and scientific experiment. Its structure as a solvent is also highly unstable: "The consensus among chemists is that any temporary disruption of the water structure by a dissolved agent would disappear within a fraction of a second after its removal by dilution, owing to the vigorous thermal motions of the water molecules."

Two, microwaves are not ionizing radiation--if they were, then radar would give you cancer, or maybe kill you. The sparking caused when metal is microwaved is caused by the metal acting like an antenna and picking up energy off the microwaves. It's not caused by ionization. (Radar doesn't give you cancer. Neither do cell phones.)

The reas> It's just a theory, somewhat supported by

science:

Here are three for starters: Nothing south of the *** has anything substantive to do with science. While beliefs play a real role in sensory experience, prescriptive pronouncements about matters that are speculative only insofar as they have not been compared with fact probably do no-one a service. And there is a wonderful irony in the use of scientific lexicon and syntax in making what amount to faith-based, anti-scientific assertions, a practice regrettably prevalent in the greater mythos of tea.

Sorry, but you asked.

-DM

No, none of what you believe is true. And microwaves aren't ionizing radiation anyway.

--scott