10 ms·

Tea (1999)

61 points by mutor 11y ago

nosuchthing 11y ago
"A Nice Cup of Tea", by George Orwell (1946) [ http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv ] If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several ofthe most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes. When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden: • First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea. • Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad. • Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water. • Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners. • Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly. • Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference. • Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle. • Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it. • Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste. • Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round. • Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again. These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
- peterwwillis 11y ago
  ....Thanks for the content, but could you put this in a pastebin, or link to a source?
  - pyrocat 11y ago
    http://bfy.tw/3CvN http://bfy.tw/3CvN
  - strayptr 11y ago
    I prefer that they posted it as an HN comment. Scrolling isn't difficult, and mobile users rarely click on links. I probably wouldn't have read it if it was in a pastebin or linked to a source.
AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
We need better sieves. Tea-balls are awful, and the vast majority of tea sieves are these tiny little mesh buckets that affix to the top of the kettle, meaning they only even touch the water if the kettle is completely filled. Then, to boot, they are so woefully undersized (probably for the sake of making them easy to fit into the pot) that the tea leaves barely have any place to bloom. The result is a very weak tasting cup of tea despite the effort of having acquired good quality loose-leaf tea. I eventually grew so annoyed with my teapot that I've let the leaves bloom directly in the pot, and then put the sieve/filter into my cup, so that it will catch any leaves before I lift it out.
- o_nate 11y ago
  I use a one-cup Finum brewing basket which fits into a standard-size mug and leaves plenty of room for the leaves to circulate while they steep. Works great.
- alberte 11y ago
  Have you tried a tea strainer - something like this http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-3-Inch-Strainer/dp/B001713L84/ref=sr_1_6?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1449697861&sr=1-6&keywords=tea+strainer http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-3-Inch-Strainer/dp/B001... the old school way Edit: http://www.amazon.com/Online-Stores-Inc-Tstr-Strainer/dp/B002Q710ZY/ref=pd_sim_79_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=31WcadjZ4qL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=08H3SGWPDZ64NSS99Y43 http://www.amazon.com/Online-Stores-Inc-Tstr-Strainer/dp/B00... more traditional
- Avshalom 11y ago
  French Press/Cafetière. Just buy one in whatever size you consume.
- peterwwillis 11y ago
  You're supposed to brew the leaves in the pot. That's why traditional teapots have built-in straining holes (or you can use an alternate vessel like a Gaiwan). Most people rarely get the temperature right anyway so proper extraction isn't usually a consideration. That said, this thing is friggin magical: http://www.teavana.com/us/en/teaware/tea-makers/teavana-32-oz-perfectea-maker-011034886.html http://www.teavana.com/us/en/teaware/tea-makers/teavana-32-o...
alberte 11y ago
If you want to try tea I wouldn't try earl grey first, it has a funny taste to me - and I drink a lot of tea. Try english breakfast (twinings if you can get it), or even better orange pekoe, but all the other instructions are spot on. There are so many different flavours that black tea can be, no two brands taste the same, if you really want to enjoy it though avoid supermarket tea bags they are so very dull.
peterwwillis 11y ago
In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants. When you're using water that's 212 degrees, and measuring by teaspoon rather than weight, and suggesting porcelain will hold the heat the longest, yes, I think you're clueless about making tea. Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Higher than 208 degrees, with typical black teas, you're just accelerating the steep time. Here he steeps for up to 3 minutes because the water was hotter; at 208, you'd steep 5 minutes on average. Some people will tell you that you shouldn't have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. THEN YOU'RE NOT DRINKING TEA! YOU'RE DRINKING A TEA LATTE! ..... Sorry. I just get upset when ignorant westerners think they're experts about foreign food. Next thing you know they'll claim they've mastered curry or something.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  My grandmother drank earl grey and other commodity black tea with milk and two cube of sugar for 80 years. I acquired the taste from enjoying my time with her. Why get upset about it? There's no ignorance to liking what you like.
- morsch 11y ago
  Ignorant westerners have been drinking tea for hundreds of years. I don't think it counts as foreign food anymore.
- ablation 11y ago
  So angry about tea.
subnaught 11y ago
This is absolutely incorrect. The best thing you can do to enhance your tea-drinking experience is to buy good tea, and good tea is invariably brewed off the boil, usually somewhere between 170-200F, depending on the tea.[0] Higher temperatures will extract too much tannin at the expense of aromatics. The British generally drink shit tea and then add milk to it, which is why they can get away with brewing it at 212F. Remember that the British experience with tea dates back only to the 17th century, whereas the Chinese and Japanese have had much longer to refine the growing, processing, and drinking of tea. [0]: http://www.itoen.com/preparing-tea http://www.itoen.com/preparing-tea
- gregn 11y ago
  This is correct. Boiling water scalds the tea giving it a burnt-out taste. Of course this depends on the tea. I find it less true for black tea such as Darjeeling (my personal favorite), but for green tea it is absolutely imperative or lest the liquid produced be undrinkable. All this talk about boiling water must have to do with the pathetic quality of the tea being used, like hotness masks the flavor of inferior saki.
- an_ko 11y ago
  Converting the mentioned temperatures to Celsius: 170–200°F = 76.6–93.3°C 212°F = 100°C
- blacksmith_tb 11y ago
  Well said, though it might be more generous to say that using guidelines like the Itoen ones are a good jumping-off point, but that ideally everyone should experiment with temp, time, and tea quality to make something they like to drink. For example, it's common in China today for people to drink green tea that's been steeping for long periods of time in travel cups with a strainer in the lid - steeping indefinitely (aka 'stewing') is supposedly against the rules (but lack of the time to use a teapot has changed the rules).
- antognini 11y ago
  I have seen a variety of opinions on whether to use water just off the boil, or slightly cooler water to brew tea. The Royal Society of Chemistry released a guide to make the perfect cup of tea: http://www.academiaobscura.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RSC-tea-guidelines.pdf http://www.academiaobscura.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RS... They recommend using boiling water as well. Harold McGee's Keys to Good Cooking recommends water just off the boil for black tea, but cooler water for oolong and green teas.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
flashman 11y ago
Oh, h2g2. So close to being Wikipedia, just without the idea (or possibly the courage) to let anyone edit an article.
deepnet 11y ago
Tea provides much of the alertness of coffee and a sort of well-rounded relaxation unlike the beam like focus and occasional jitters from coffee - consuming both is best for a highly productive day.
- alberte 11y ago
  Due to L-Theanine they say http://www.worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/ http://www.worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/ it relaxes you and mellows out the caffeine
ozy123 11y ago
Kind of missed the point. Most people drink "bad" tea because they enjoy it. In fact the "correct" way usually is rejected when tried by your average tea drinker as being too strong.
lukasm 11y ago
British don't drink that much tea comparing to, say, Poles or Russians, which was a surprise, since english books stereotype British as massive tea drinkers. My ideal tea is Earl Gray with lemon. Put a teabag in a cup with a tiny slice of lemon (DO NOT peel off the skin, it's blasphemy). Pour boiling water into the cup, wait 15 seconds, squeeze the teabag and lemon with a spoon and chuck them. Good luck :) You don't have to warm up the cup, just pour the boiling water straight away. When water reaches tea it has around 95°C (204F). Tea from warm water is indeed disgusting. Not a big fan of tea with milk, although it work with Chai(especially Chai on milk). PS never use sugar!
JasonCEC 11y ago
On the off-hand chance that anyone here is super obsessed with tea, I'm the founder and director emeritus of The Tea Institute at Penn State[1], and blog here: [2]. I now run a flavor profiling and quality intelligence company based off my research in the Institute. [1] http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ [2] http://cultofquality.com/ http://cultofquality.com/
- bootload 11y ago
  Jason, this write-up on AI and Tea rocks. Radiocarbon dating Tea to check authenticity? [0] Have these techniques been applied to wine? [0] "Projects in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on Tea" ~ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence-on-tea/ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-m...
  - JasonCEC 11y ago
    Hey Peter, Thanks! Radio Carbon dating is used for authenticating rare vintages of wine[0], but it's a minor test for the most part. In modern wine collecting, almost all of the fakes are focused around a few _Gran Cru_ lots of small vineyards, like chateau lafite or Petrus. It's actually not that hard to find wine from the 60's through 70's (or earlier. Counterfeiters use real lesser wine from the right time period, and forge the label and bottle - assuming they can't find an empty bottle from the actual production run! These wines easily sells for upwards of ~$10,000 to 3 - 4 x that. So radio carbon dating is only marginally useful in wine; you need to use stable isotope ecology to see if the vintage matches the right terroir[1]. To make it even harder, most of the top vintages of French wine illegally imported grapes from neighboring regions to increase their complexity and overall flavor - this was a known but secret practice for about ~100 years, and since the French AOC[2] cracked down on it, there are concerns that modern wine lacking this complexity from blending will not age as well over ~20+ years. I hope this information is helpful! [0] http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2010/march/detecting-fake-wine-vintages-its-an-atomic-blast.html http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3%B4l%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3...
nikdaheratik 11y ago
There are as many ways of brewing good tea as there are of good coffee (maybe more). I've read this before and it is a good jumping off point for typical English black tea in a teabag. Less good for other types (like green, oolong, or herbal) which should be boiled at a lower temp for most and likely steeped longer, though for some herbals, you just try it out to taste as far as temperature and steeping goes. For teapot and loose leaf, there are a number of other things to consider like whether the pot is cold/lukewarm and how to handle the leaves, etc. Equally important: most off-brand teas in the U.S. are low quality. Lipton in America != Lipton in England/Australia. Also, (as someone mentioned) Earl Grey is actually on the milder end of black teas and may not be a good starter compared to typical Breakfast/Afternoon type teas. In short, Green tea is more aromatic, Black tea has a stronger flavor with a nice finish in the better blends. Earl Grey is more in the middle along with "Gunpowder Green".
DrScump 11y ago
For those of you in the Bay Area, do a tasting at Teance in Berkeley. Quality and presentation are both exceptional. Tastings are organized into flights, e.g. a flight of black teas, or oolongs, or greens and whites. http://www.teance.com/ http://www.teance.com/

Tea (1999)

61 points by mutor 11y ago

"A Nice Cup of Tea", by George Orwell (1946) [ http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv http://pastebin.com/g3FSzqPv ] If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several ofthe most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes. When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden: • First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea. • Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad. • Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water. • Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners. • Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly. • Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference. • Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle. • Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it. • Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste. • Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round. • Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again. These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

peterwwillis 11y ago
....Thanks for the content, but could you put this in a pastebin, or link to a source?
- pyrocat 11y ago
  http://bfy.tw/3CvN http://bfy.tw/3CvN
- strayptr 11y ago
  I prefer that they posted it as an HN comment. Scrolling isn't difficult, and mobile users rarely click on links. I probably wouldn't have read it if it was in a pastebin or linked to a source.

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago

We need better sieves. Tea-balls are awful, and the vast majority of tea sieves are these tiny little mesh buckets that affix to the top of the kettle, meaning they only even touch the water if the kettle is completely filled. Then, to boot, they are so woefully undersized (probably for the sake of making them easy to fit into the pot) that the tea leaves barely have any place to bloom. The result is a very weak tasting cup of tea despite the effort of having acquired good quality loose-leaf tea. I eventually grew so annoyed with my teapot that I've let the leaves bloom directly in the pot, and then put the sieve/filter into my cup, so that it will catch any leaves before I lift it out.

o_nate 11y ago
I use a one-cup Finum brewing basket which fits into a standard-size mug and leaves plenty of room for the leaves to circulate while they steep. Works great.
alberte 11y ago
Have you tried a tea strainer - something like this http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-3-Inch-Strainer/dp/B001713L84/ref=sr_1_6?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1449697861&sr=1-6&keywords=tea+strainer http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-3-Inch-Strainer/dp/B001... the old school way Edit: http://www.amazon.com/Online-Stores-Inc-Tstr-Strainer/dp/B002Q710ZY/ref=pd_sim_79_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=31WcadjZ4qL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=08H3SGWPDZ64NSS99Y43 http://www.amazon.com/Online-Stores-Inc-Tstr-Strainer/dp/B00... more traditional
Avshalom 11y ago
French Press/Cafetière. Just buy one in whatever size you consume.
peterwwillis 11y ago
You're supposed to brew the leaves in the pot. That's why traditional teapots have built-in straining holes (or you can use an alternate vessel like a Gaiwan). Most people rarely get the temperature right anyway so proper extraction isn't usually a consideration. That said, this thing is friggin magical: http://www.teavana.com/us/en/teaware/tea-makers/teavana-32-oz-perfectea-maker-011034886.html http://www.teavana.com/us/en/teaware/tea-makers/teavana-32-o...

alberte 11y ago

If you want to try tea I wouldn't try earl grey first, it has a funny taste to me - and I drink a lot of tea. Try english breakfast (twinings if you can get it), or even better orange pekoe, but all the other instructions are spot on. There are so many different flavours that black tea can be, no two brands taste the same, if you really want to enjoy it though avoid supermarket tea bags they are so very dull.

peterwwillis 11y ago

In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants. When you're using water that's 212 degrees, and measuring by teaspoon rather than weight, and suggesting porcelain will hold the heat the longest, yes, I think you're clueless about making tea. Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Higher than 208 degrees, with typical black teas, you're just accelerating the steep time. Here he steeps for up to 3 minutes because the water was hotter; at 208, you'd steep 5 minutes on average. Some people will tell you that you shouldn't have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. THEN YOU'RE NOT DRINKING TEA! YOU'RE DRINKING A TEA LATTE! ..... Sorry. I just get upset when ignorant westerners think they're experts about foreign food. Next thing you know they'll claim they've mastered curry or something.

Spooky23 11y ago
My grandmother drank earl grey and other commodity black tea with milk and two cube of sugar for 80 years. I acquired the taste from enjoying my time with her. Why get upset about it? There's no ignorance to liking what you like.
morsch 11y ago
Ignorant westerners have been drinking tea for hundreds of years. I don't think it counts as foreign food anymore.
ablation 11y ago
So angry about tea.

subnaught 11y ago

This is absolutely incorrect. The best thing you can do to enhance your tea-drinking experience is to buy good tea, and good tea is invariably brewed off the boil, usually somewhere between 170-200F, depending on the tea.[0] Higher temperatures will extract too much tannin at the expense of aromatics. The British generally drink shit tea and then add milk to it, which is why they can get away with brewing it at 212F. Remember that the British experience with tea dates back only to the 17th century, whereas the Chinese and Japanese have had much longer to refine the growing, processing, and drinking of tea. [0]: http://www.itoen.com/preparing-tea http://www.itoen.com/preparing-tea

gregn 11y ago
This is correct. Boiling water scalds the tea giving it a burnt-out taste. Of course this depends on the tea. I find it less true for black tea such as Darjeeling (my personal favorite), but for green tea it is absolutely imperative or lest the liquid produced be undrinkable. All this talk about boiling water must have to do with the pathetic quality of the tea being used, like hotness masks the flavor of inferior saki.
an_ko 11y ago
Converting the mentioned temperatures to Celsius: 170–200°F = 76.6–93.3°C 212°F = 100°C
blacksmith_tb 11y ago
Well said, though it might be more generous to say that using guidelines like the Itoen ones are a good jumping-off point, but that ideally everyone should experiment with temp, time, and tea quality to make something they like to drink. For example, it's common in China today for people to drink green tea that's been steeping for long periods of time in travel cups with a strainer in the lid - steeping indefinitely (aka 'stewing') is supposedly against the rules (but lack of the time to use a teapot has changed the rules).
antognini 11y ago
I have seen a variety of opinions on whether to use water just off the boil, or slightly cooler water to brew tea. The Royal Society of Chemistry released a guide to make the perfect cup of tea: http://www.academiaobscura.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RSC-tea-guidelines.pdf http://www.academiaobscura.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RS... They recommend using boiling water as well. Harold McGee's Keys to Good Cooking recommends water just off the boil for black tea, but cooler water for oolong and green teas.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

flashman 11y ago

Oh, h2g2. So close to being Wikipedia, just without the idea (or possibly the courage) to let anyone edit an article.

deepnet 11y ago

Tea provides much of the alertness of coffee and a sort of well-rounded relaxation unlike the beam like focus and occasional jitters from coffee - consuming both is best for a highly productive day.

alberte 11y ago
Due to L-Theanine they say http://www.worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/ http://www.worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/ it relaxes you and mellows out the caffeine

ozy123 11y ago

Kind of missed the point. Most people drink "bad" tea because they enjoy it. In fact the "correct" way usually is rejected when tried by your average tea drinker as being too strong.

lukasm 11y ago

British don't drink that much tea comparing to, say, Poles or Russians, which was a surprise, since english books stereotype British as massive tea drinkers. My ideal tea is Earl Gray with lemon. Put a teabag in a cup with a tiny slice of lemon (DO NOT peel off the skin, it's blasphemy). Pour boiling water into the cup, wait 15 seconds, squeeze the teabag and lemon with a spoon and chuck them. Good luck :) You don't have to warm up the cup, just pour the boiling water straight away. When water reaches tea it has around 95°C (204F). Tea from warm water is indeed disgusting. Not a big fan of tea with milk, although it work with Chai(especially Chai on milk). PS never use sugar!

JasonCEC 11y ago

On the off-hand chance that anyone here is super obsessed with tea, I'm the founder and director emeritus of The Tea Institute at Penn State[1], and blog here: [2]. I now run a flavor profiling and quality intelligence company based off my research in the Institute. [1] http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ http://sites.psu.edu/teainstitute/ [2] http://cultofquality.com/ http://cultofquality.com/

bootload 11y ago
Jason, this write-up on AI and Tea rocks. Radiocarbon dating Tea to check authenticity? [0] Have these techniques been applied to wine? [0] "Projects in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on Tea" ~ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence-on-tea/ http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2015/05/projects-in-m...
- JasonCEC 11y ago
  Hey Peter, Thanks! Radio Carbon dating is used for authenticating rare vintages of wine[0], but it's a minor test for the most part. In modern wine collecting, almost all of the fakes are focused around a few _Gran Cru_ lots of small vineyards, like chateau lafite or Petrus. It's actually not that hard to find wine from the 60's through 70's (or earlier. Counterfeiters use real lesser wine from the right time period, and forge the label and bottle - assuming they can't find an empty bottle from the actual production run! These wines easily sells for upwards of ~$10,000 to 3 - 4 x that. So radio carbon dating is only marginally useful in wine; you need to use stable isotope ecology to see if the vintage matches the right terroir[1]. To make it even harder, most of the top vintages of French wine illegally imported grapes from neighboring regions to increase their complexity and overall flavor - this was a known but secret practice for about ~100 years, and since the French AOC[2] cracked down on it, there are concerns that modern wine lacking this complexity from blending will not age as well over ~20+ years. I hope this information is helpful! [0] http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2010/march/detecting-fake-wine-vintages-its-an-atomic-blast.html http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3%B4l%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contr%C3...

nikdaheratik 11y ago

There are as many ways of brewing good tea as there are of good coffee (maybe more). I've read this before and it is a good jumping off point for typical English black tea in a teabag. Less good for other types (like green, oolong, or herbal) which should be boiled at a lower temp for most and likely steeped longer, though for some herbals, you just try it out to taste as far as temperature and steeping goes. For teapot and loose leaf, there are a number of other things to consider like whether the pot is cold/lukewarm and how to handle the leaves, etc. Equally important: most off-brand teas in the U.S. are low quality. Lipton in America != Lipton in England/Australia. Also, (as someone mentioned) Earl Grey is actually on the milder end of black teas and may not be a good starter compared to typical Breakfast/Afternoon type teas. In short, Green tea is more aromatic, Black tea has a stronger flavor with a nice finish in the better blends. Earl Grey is more in the middle along with "Gunpowder Green".

DrScump 11y ago

For those of you in the Bay Area, do a tasting at Teance in Berkeley. Quality and presentation are both exceptional. Tastings are organized into flights, e.g. a flight of black teas, or oolongs, or greens and whites. http://www.teance.com/ http://www.teance.com/