Fine Tea

A few words about the Price of Fine Tea

Fine teas are absurdly inexpensive for their quality, and may very well be the world's greatest gourmet bargain. A pound of tea yields about 200 cups. This means that a price of $100 per pound for a rare and most sought-after tea translates to only 50 cents per cup. Compare that to $1 a glass even for cheap wine - or $10 a pour for a rare Château Mouton Rothschild.

Having said that, we certainly don’t advocate rushing out and buying the most expensive tea available in order to get the best. While one can suggest to a wine drinker that he or she can get much better wine for twice the price, the same is not necessarily true with tea. Price alone is not a dependable indication of the quality of tea, and certainly not for the enjoyment it will offer.

We therefore recommend: collect several different kinds of teas rather than buying a large amount of one. This will not only add variety to your tea enjoyment, it will also help you to find your favorite teas for different occasions.

Preparing and Enjoying Fine Tea

Preparing a good cup of loose-leaved tea is neither difficult nor time consuming. Simply follow the five steps listed below. To ensure superior results, we have added specific brewing recommendations for each of our teas which can be found in the tea list as well as on removable labels attached to the tea bags.

The up-coming tea enthusiast will find some additional, helpful information under "Details on preparing and enjoying tea".
Five steps for preparing tea:

1. Use a preheated teapot. In the absence of a teapot, any odorless, heat-resistant pot will suffice (at least temporarily).
   
   
2. Add one teaspoon of tea leaves per cup. Experiment with the leaf quantity as you go.
   
   
3. For black and oolong teas, bring fresh, cold water to a roaring boil and pour it over the tea leaves. For white and green teas, use water that has just started to steam slightly.

   Please keep in mind: Water requires a lot of energy to heat. Please measure the amount of water you need and heat only that. You will use less gas or electricity and your tea will be ready more quickly.

   
   
4. Allow black tea to infuse for 3 to 5 minutes, green tea for 1 to 3 minutes, and white and oolong for 2 to 5 minutes. Adjust the brewing time to your taste. If the tea turns out to be bitter or harsh, it is often a sign of over brewing.
   
   
5. Separate the leaves from the tea and serve.

Some green, oolong and white teas are good for multiple infusions - just add new hot water to the pot and increase the steeping time slightly. Repeat until the flavor starts to fade.

When attempting to bring out the subtle characteristics of fine tea, a closer look at the process of making tea is required. Some call it the "art of making tea" – we call it a passion – a passion that inevitably grows as you begin to discover the subtleties fine tea provides. No artistic talent or expert knowledge is needed. All it takes is to experience this first truly outstanding cup of tea, and chances are the never-ending search for the perfect cup of tea begins; the process of making tea – as odd as it might sound to the novice – becomes an integral part of the enjoyment of tea.

As you continue to read we will elaborate on the following details of preparing tea:

• Gourmet Iced Tea Recipe
• Equipment and preparation
• Quantity of dry tea leaves
• Water quality and temperature
• Steeping time
• Serving tea "properly"
• Multiple infusions

Many of our explanations are based on facts - and when followed, the result will be a superior cup of tea. Other suggestions are more subjective and invite you to experiment until your personal taste and preference is found.

Gourmet Iced Tea Recipe

We have updated our website to include an entire section on Fine Iced Teas:
- Iced Tea Preparation Instructions
- Iced Tea Recomendations
- Iced Tea Maker
- Iced Tea Sample Collection

Equipment and Preparation

To brew loose tea, we generally recommend the use of a teapot or teacup with a large, reusable infusion basket. These environmentally friendly baskets allow for easy separation of tea and leaves while giving the leaves enough room to unfold. The very finest teas deserve to infuse directly in the teapot, unrestricted by a basket. After the infusion period, the tea should be poured through a strainer or infusion basket into a second pot for serving.

Before adding the leaves, the teapot should be preheated by rinsing it with hot water. This serves two purposes:

• it prevents the water from cooling down too much so as to fully extract all the flavor
  
  
• the rising steam in a preheated pot will cause the tea to "open up" and release its aroma just before the water is added. (Try letting the leaves sit in the warm pot for a few moments and smell the fragrance.)
  

The quantity of dry tea leaves

The common recommendation is to add one heaping teaspoon per 6 oz. cup of tea. This tip, however, does not take into consideration the fact that loose teas vary greatly in volume as well as in strength.

A teaspoonful of strong, broken Assam tea for example, weighs about 2.2 grams while a spoon of a much more delicate, full-leaf Darjeeling weighs only 1.5 grams; the large leaf Silver Needle White tea weighs 0.9 grams. Using the same one-teaspoon-per cup for all three of these teas would yield quite disappointing results. In other words, any direction on how much tea to use should ideally take into consideration the actual volume and character of the individual tea.

Therefore, for every tea in our line, we give an individual recommendation. These recommendations are based on our professional opinion about how much tea is appropriate in order to bring out the best characteristics of a tea. They can be found in our tea list under the description of each tea and are printed on a removable label on our tea bags. The label can be peeled off the bags and attached to your favorite tea canister.

We are thereby using the following increments:

These measurements are based on a standard-sized measurement teaspoon (5ml). We strongly suggest that you set aside such a spoon for your teas since regular silverware spoons vary greatly in size.

One could object and say that the desired results, when making tea, are too dependent on personal preferences to justify following such specific recommendations. True, everyone’s taste is different, but we feel that by following our recommendations and adjusting them to your personal taste, you will quickly be able to brew consistently superior tea and avoid the initial disappointments that are due to improper preparation.

Water quality and temperature

Before we talk about water temperature – here are some general thoughts about water quality: Tea can only be as good as the water that is used to brew it. The more delicate the tea, the more important the water quality becomes. A simple way to qualify tea water is: "If you like the taste of your plain water, it will most likely be fine for tea". We recommend using a good, bottled spring water. When using regular tap water, it is recommended that you filter out the added chlorine which harms the flavor of tea. The Brita household filters have proved to do a good job and are reasonably priced. Do not use distilled water. It lacks the minerals that are necessary to bring out the flavor of tea and will make the infusion flat and almost soapy.

Finding just the right water temperature is an important secret to preparing many fine teas. Most black and oolong teas should be infused with water that has just reached the boiling point. The boiling is important because it increases the amount of oxygen in the water which will make for a fresher tasting tea. If the water continues to boil, it becomes de-aerated and flat. An easy way to ensure just the right boiling time is to use an electric water kettle that automatically switches off when the full boiling point is reached.

Green and white tea must be brewed at lower temperatures of 122° to 194 ° F, depending on the tea. The general guideline is: the finer the tea, the lower the water temperature. If the water temperature is too high, green tea will quickly start tasting bitter. Please refer to the chart below for a summary of water temperatures, or to the recommendations in our tea list for the suggested temperatures listed individually.

Steeping Time

The often-quoted 3 -5 minutes of steeping time is a good guideline for most sturdy black teas. Generally speaking, the smaller the particle size, the shorter the steeping time. Variations of the steeping time will produce equally good cups with different levels of flavor and aroma.

The more delicate black teas as well as all green, oolong and white teas require different steeping times to bring out the subtle characteristics. Here are some examples:

• Special Grade Ti Kuan Yin, prepared gungfu style, takes no more than 30 seconds for the first infusion.
  
  
• Most green and white teas taste best after 1 to 2 minutes - tightly-rolled leaves take a little longer - and can usually be infused multiple times.
  
  
• Darjeelings, with their delicate, fruity aroma which can quickly become unpleasantly bitter, usually should not be infused for more than 3 minutes. 15 seconds more or less can make a huge difference.
  
  
• Some Formosa Oolongs may steep for up to 7 minutes.

Please refer to the recommendations in our tea list for the individually suggested steeping times. We strongly recommend to always use a kitchen timer, preferably a digital one with minutes and seconds.

Serving tea "properly"

After following the above procedures, a remarkable tea will be ready to be served, which triggers some last remarks on:

1. The Serving temperature of tea

The human palate is much more sensitive to moderately warm beverages than to very hot ones. Consequently, we recommend that you have the patience to let the tea cool until you can comfortably touch the cup; as long as the cup is too hot, the tea is too hot to drink.

2. Tea cups - a very subjective excursion

Tea, of course, can be served in any kind of heat-resistant cup or mug. A huge selection of sometimes amusingly elaborate tea ware is available in a wide variety of prices.

We feel, however, that fine tea warrants a drinking vessel that underlines and emphasizes the natural beauty of the beverage, instead of distracting from it. A simple tea cup made from white porcelain or heat-resistant glass has the same effect on tea as a plain wine glass has on wine - it will let the beverage speak for itself.

3. About the addition of milk, sugar and other substances

When it comes to adding ingredients to tea, the preferences are as diverse as are tastes and customs. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy tea - anything that sounds good is worth trying. (How about a Russian Caravan Tea with a spoonful of marmalade?) For the sake of discussion, we will briefly summarize the arguments made for and against the use of milk, sugar and lemon in fine tea:

The least disputed advice is that green, oolong and delicate Darjeelings should be served without any additions. A vast majority of tea lovers will also agree that hearty black teas, such as Assams, strong Ceylons or bolder Keemuns, take milk well and are, in some cases, even enhanced by it.

As far as the use of sugar is concerned, the differences of opinions are widely spread. While many tea enthusiasts feel that the addition of sugar disguises the taste of fine tea no matter what, others with palates that are used to sugar, feel that it improves the taste of many strong teas. For those who enjoy their morning cup strong and slightly sweetened we recommend the use of the more neutral-tasting rock sugar . Rock sugar is well known in Europe as the ideal sweetener for tea.

No matter what the individual taste may call for, it is hard to defend the addition of lemon to fine tea. It undoubtedly adds a lemony taste and thereby alters the flavor of any tea. Lemon should therefore be reserved for refreshing iced teas (green or black), or to add nuance to an otherwise "boring" tasting tea.

Multiple infusions of green and oolong teas

Many fine green and oolong teas not only hold up well during multiple infusions, but consecutive pots of teas such as First Grade Lung Chin, Superior Ti Kuan Yin, Silver Needle or Jasmine Pearls, to name a few, add much to the taste experience of top teas. By increasing the steeping time slightly with each serving, exceptional varieties can yield well over 3 infusions before the flavor begins to fade.

The ideal brewing vessel for multiple infusions is the Yixing tea pot. The spout has a built in clay filter, making it convenient to decanter the tea; the leaves stay in the pot ready for the next serving. Multiple infusions of the same leaves have the additional advantage of allowing an increased tea consumption without an excess intake of stimulants, primarily caffeine. Most of the highly soluble caffeine is extracted during the first serving, which leads to drastically-reduced levels in consecutive infusions.