How to brew the
Perfect Cup of Tea
Traditional Brewing
Factors that affect the taste of tea are water temperature, leaf to water ratio, brewing time and the quality of tea of course. Tea is an experimental drink so there’s no perfect guide to how much time you need, or how much tea you want in your brew. It all depends on your preference, how you like your tea to be, strong or delicate. However, if you’re new to tea drinking, here is a general guide to brew a great cup of tea every time.
Steps to brewing traditional tea brewing method:
Warm tea pot with boiling water
How much tea: As a general rule of thumb 5g per 150ml water per person
Water temp: Always use fresh water and shouldn’t reboil water as it diminishes the oxygen content. Water should always be below boiling point to avoid burning delicate tea leaves
How long: 1-2 minute, check your tea regularly to find your perfect steeping time
Enjoy your tea, as it is or with milk and sugar.
For high quality tea, you can always reinfuse up to 2-3 times
| Tea | Temp | Multiple Infusions? |
|---|---|---|
| Green Tea | 80-85°C | Yes |
| White Tea | 80°C | Yes |
| Black Tea | 90-95°C | No |
| Oolong | 90-95°C | Yes |
Gongfu Brewing
Gong Fu brewing is a tea brewing technique that allows all the best quality of tea to shine. In “Gong Fu Cha” the goal is to enjoy each layer of the tea, so steep the tea for very short periods of time, and you can steep your tea up to 6 times! Gong Fu brewing is a far more complicated process to drinking tea, but taking the time to do all these steps and appreciate tea is like a form of meditation. The process of preparing for a Gong Fu Cha session and drinking your tea mindfully is a perfect way to unwind and find calmness.
In Gong Fu brewing, you typically use a gaiwan (chén khải) or other teaware of choice (Ấm tử sa,..). Typically, you use small amounts of hot water and a relatively large amount of leaf, this high leaf-to-water ratio allows you to infuse your leaf very quickly, and make multiple steeps of the same leaf. In this way you are able to extract every exquisite layer of flavour. The infusions are usually made in quick succession to explore all the beautiful nuances of the tea leaves. As the water penetrates deeper into the leaves different subtleties are revealed.
Quality of water: never reboil, the best water for gong fu brewing is fresh, filtered water.
Other handy notes:
Rolled oolongs need softening before infusing. Using your pot or gaiwan, cover the leaf with an inch of boiling water at 100°C to "wash" the leaf for a few seconds - this opens out the rolled leaf and allows the water to penetrate (discard this "wash").With a unrolled leaf you can skip this step.
Strain your tea after each infusion. There's no need to reheat the water as you go, because the softened leaves will require lower temperatures to release their flavours - but you will need to extend the time to 10-20 seconds for later steeps.
| Tea | g/100ml water | Temp | 1st Infusion (seconds) | + Infusion (seconds) | Number of Infusions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green Tea | 4g | 80-85°C | 15 | +5 | 5 |
| White Tea | 4g | 80°C | 20 | +10 | 5 |
| Black Tea | 4g | 90-95°C | 15 | +5 | 6 |
| Oolong | 6g | 90-95°C | 25 | +5 | 6 |
Cold Brewing
Cold brewing your tea gives you much more mellow and refreshing tea compared to hot brewing because the flavour of tea is slowly extracted after several hours. Cold brew tea offers an easy drink to bring on the go, a refreshing alternative to cold water on summer days with added health benefits. Simply brew your tea with cool water in the fridge overnight, and never have to worry about over brewed, bitter tea.
| Tea | g/1 litres water | Time in the Fridge |
|---|---|---|
| Green Tea | 6g | 6-8 hrs |
| White Tea | 6g | 6-8 hrs |
| Black Tea | 6-10g | 8-12 hrs |
| Oolong | 6-10g | 8-10 hrs |
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