Do you reboil water?

No. Even for my first pot, I'm careful to bring the water to a boil and not let it sit boiling for very much longer.

If you're concerned about wasting water, why not boil just enough for your teapot + a cup or whatever amount covers the bottom of the kettle so that it won't sit hot and dry after you fill the pot?

Or, experiment for yourself. Try reboiling your water and see if that second pot tastes dull, flat, and/or lifeless. People's tastes vary and you may not notice any difference. For the sake of your guests, however, I recommend that you stick to convention and don't reboil when you're serving company.

Total waste of energy, too - takes a lot to heat water. Think about Iraqi children drinking bad water and freezing because US uses so much energy to reboil water. (Or not.)

Personally, I think the reboil thing is mostly hokum. Love to try a double-blind test with someone who claims to be able to tell the difference. More plausible is that heating water more or longer drives off CO2, in turn leading to the precipitation of divalent salts like calcium and magnesium. That has a big effect on taste (and scale buildup in the kettle), though better/worse is a matter of preference and tea formulation.

-DM

The main problem with boiling or reboiling water is oxygen loss. You want cool fresh water for tea that is brought to the minimal boiling or steaming point for your tea. Longer boiling reduces the oxygen levels to the point where the flavor of the tea is impacted.

It would be wonderful to have hard data on this oft-heard assertion - or even a plausible mechanism for the putative effect. (Loss of O2 is certain. Resulting deterioration in flavor - hmm.)

-DM

Have you ever tried drinking boiled water?

I'm pretty picky about my brewing, but not about reboiling water. I have never noticed a difference and would think most couldn't. Using a good quality water to begin with is the only issue I care about. But also, I only fill my tea kettle to about double what I need. That way I can make my first pot, drink it, the rest of the water stays pretty hot and can be brought to temp. quicker for the second brewing. So at most the water is "reboiled" only once. We're not talking 7 or 8 times.

Also, from a energy standpoint, why would you heat 3 or 4 times the amount needed? That is just wasting enery and making it take twice as long to boil.

- Dominic

Only with tea, never plain. However, the mother of a guy I used to know liked to drink plain hot water. She was the same who introduced me to Constant Comment so, obviously, she also gave up on using teabags.

I try to boil, or simmer, just the amount I need, but since I do it in an open pan and have a cat I don't watch every second, I routinely toss out the ounce left if there is one. Toci

somebody take some water and pour it in a cup, then take some more water and boil it, then pour it into the exact same type of cup, label the cups and let them both sit overnight.

Next day, close your eyes and have somebody hand you the cups randomly and see if you can determine what is what.

I do reboil if I have put too much water in the kettle. Every single piece of tea literature I've read says this is a major no-no, but I can't really say that it makes much of a difference to my tea. To my kettle though...the scale buildup when I reboil is just dreadful (but then I live in an area with very hard water).

NEVER reboil water.

The reason it can be flat is that it reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. I never reboil water for delicate teas, but for something like a heavy assam I figure it isn't going to be noticed. I never did a careful A/B test, though.

--scott

I don't reboil water repeatedly - whatever is left after the teapot is filled and my mug is warmed gets poured down the sink. However, there are times when the kettle is boiled and I can't make the tea right away, so I will return the water to boil one time. For example, every morning after showering and dressing, I will make a quick trip downstairs to the kitchen and switch on the electic kettle (I don't know how any tea drinker can survive one of these), and then go back upstairs to make the bed, finish dressing, etc. The kettle has usually boiled and switched off before I'm ready to come downstairs. I'll switch the kettle back on and it's boiling within a few seconds. It saves me standing around, wasting precious minutes waiting for the kettle to boil for my breakfast cuppa before I dash off to work.

I've never noticed any probems with the taste. But like I said, I would not reboil leftover water in the kettle repeatedly. Even if the reboiling didn't adversely affect the water, the fact that it has been sitting around for a while, instead of being freshly drawn, probably would.

Why? It will explode? It's a sin?

No, if you have pure water, it doesn't matter. Pure water, boiled or not, is perfectly flavorless.

But, if your tap water is full of chroride, minerals, and soluble metals, you'll taste a difference. It that case, your last worry should be making tea.

Any tea purist knows that the oxygen content of the water is important.

If you're a tea bag/Lipton fan, don't worry. You've never had a proper cup of tea anyway.

Nath snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com2/21/06

Well, I beg to differ. Most of us, me included, discern differences in the tastes of water brought about various levels of various minerals, etc. "Pure" -- that is perhaps distilled -- water tastes flat and produces flat tasting tea.

...some of which is bad and some of which is good.

Michael

Make sense. You are essentialy saying that inpurities found in regular water contribute to the taste of the tea, so it's not necessarly a bad thing. It all depends on the nature and the concentration of those soluble subtances.

I'm happy to read a tea connoisseur, not a tea snob.

And Michael is most certainly a connoisseur and not a snob by any means, he is also spot on with his reply. Personally, I use PA spring water for my tea. I find it has the best compliment to almost any tea. The water is what actually makes or breaks the tea, and of all the factors it is the one that actually has the greatest impact (and most often is overlooked). I have tried a number of waters, and there are great differences. I find one of the worst is to use Aquafina bottled water (which was counterintuitive to me because I love to drink Aquafina cold) I always come back to my local water cooler bottler and fresh PA spring water.

As I stated earlier the release of CO2 from the water during boiling and oxygenation level is minimal from one or two boils. I defy anyone to be able to tell a difference from water that was reboiled one time. I always boil twice as much as I need, use half and then within an hour reboil the rest for the second brewing. This is the most economical way as it saves energy and time I have found. Now, to start with 3 gallons of water, boil it, reboil it, reboil it, let it stand for hours, reboil, etc... of course it will have an effect, but that is not realistic or common.

- Dominic Drinking: Wuyi Oolong

So that is your point? I don't agree with you so I'm not good enough for you. LOL

You are the perfect example of tea snob, not a purist, who affects an offensive air of self-satisfied superiority in matters of taste : " I'm right because you are not even in my league. You must be drinking cheap teas while I'm part of the elite drinkers." Someone so much driven to prove others he's not part of an inferior class must have a lot of unresolved issues, definitively not related to tea.

I hope you'll find peace. I'll drink my next cup to that. Cheers.