Black Tea Resteeping

It depends on the specific black tea, doesn't it?

I routinely get more than decent second steepings from BOP or larger leaf black teas.

Warren

Black teas are deliberately "bruised" so that cellular contents can react with each other and with air. Then roasting destroys enzymes and removes water to stop the process. Depending on the degree of cell disruption, there may be more or less "sap" on the leaf surfaces. This dissolves almost instantly, which is why some black teas "color" on first contact with water. The rest of the flavor/color has to be leached out of the woody dried leaf, which takes longer - kind of like brewed vs. instant coffee.

A key point is that the fast-dissolving surface goo are not the same as what's inside, so the flavors will be different. There are several broad classes of bitter substances in tea, most notably alkaloids (mainly theophylline, analogous to caffeine in coffee and theobromine in chocolate) which dissolve very rapidly, and tannins (basically smaller chunks of the lignin that holds all plants together) with a wide range of solubility rates.

Green teas actually exhibit the same behavior. The most bitter (and not, to my taste, pleasant) notes come off immediately. So the first brew of green tea is strong but bitter; later extractions are much "smoother" in taste. Many brewing traditions give a fast rinse before the main brew - little of value is lost, but all the harsh stuff goes away.

-DM

"Warren C. Liebold" wrote in news:W0lAb.1447$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:

Ever had any luck with Darjeelings? I really don't drink much black tea besides them, and I've never been able to get a good second steeping out of them. Am I doing anything wrong (boiling water and 30 seconds additional steep time)?

I'm new to tea, but I've discovered a hearty Assam that takes a second steeping very well, as long as I use less water and steep it a bit longer. It's not quite as good as the first steeping, however, and the color of the first is brilliant.

I can usually get a decent second steeping out of a good Keemun. It will be milder and less intense than the first, but still has plenty of flavor.

Agalena

"John" asked:

I often get a second steeping out of Darjeelings, but it's not the same as the first. Although it may still be quite good.

I think Dog Ma covered the basic issue well. There are certain compounds that steep out of tea quickly and will appear in much greater concentrations in a first steep than a second, and other compounds that will diffuse during both.

Just don't expect to get the same results from both steepings.

Warren

On 05 Dec 2003, Ty posted the following to rec.food.drink.tea:

Maybe it's our water, but I can get a second steeping out of just about anything I've tried.

For black teas, the first steeping is 3 minutes and just below the recommended temperature. The second steeping is 4.5 to 5 minutes at the same temperature as the first. The time differential increases for oolongs and greens.

Certainly, the later steepings are not quite as good as the first, and by the third (if I push it) are usually pretty bad. But if I don't overcook or oversteep the first round, a second one is usually easy to get and pretty tasty.

Although, I did have a Keemun recently that didn't like the second steep - but the, the first steep was almost marginal to begin with.

I was recently in Japan for a week on a business trip. At the plant I found myself drinking vending machine cold green tea and rather liked it. Especially the ITO-EN product & above all the Coca-cola product "The Tea for Dining". On the other hand I didn't much care for the "Super Love Body" tea.

So Coca-cola & ITO-EN, bring on the green tea & give us a break from the infinite permutations of soda pop.

Having said that, my question is: has anyone here had "the Tea for Dining", & if so can you recommend a variety of green tea that would give a similar flavor when iced?

Thanks,

A tough request indeed, as this Coca-Cola product is actually a blend of black teas containing Darjeeling and Ceylon, according to this description:

--crymad

that'll teach me to to use google & babel fish before I ask a stupid question. Thanks,

Well, from a tea-drinker's perspective, the greater sin is your thinking was green tea after having drunk it. We can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you had it only in cans and not clear PET bottles. But still, did you really think it tasted like green tea? Honestly, I'm curious.

--crymad

I was getting it in the small clear bottles out of a vending machine with ito-en and a bunch of other bottles of tea with bright green labels. It certainly didn't look as anywhere near as dark as the kirin apple tea that I could tell was a black, (or any of the pictures on the web page you pointed to or the others I googled or certainly any black iced tea I ever drank in the USA) & I have never tasted anything quite like it. It makes me wonder now how many of these bottled teas with green labels I had were actually green.

If you look at this picture:

I don't know, maybe jet lag affected my vision, but I think it was the same color as the stuff in the green bottle in this picture.

I lived in Japan for some years. A good rule of thumb for canned and bottled teas is that those with English names are usually black teas. Green teas have Japanese names with Japanese characters. And naturally, Oolongs sport traditional Chinese typefaces.

This is a good time to clear up an online mystery for me. Why can I never, ever load a page with a .pdf extension? Attempting to open these results in an endless series of content-less windows, regardless of the browser used. Any suggestions?

--crymad

You need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is a free download.

/Lew

-Or possibly upgrade even if you do have it. And if you're on dial-up, it may take a while for each page to load even after the Acrobat window opens.

Try the help files on configuring a web browser:

Thanks to all for their advice on viewing .pdf files. Got updates and new downloads, and I can now say, after all this tinkering: That's some mighty brown green tea in that Ito-En pic.

--crymad