I’ve been drinking iced Earl Grey with no sweetener for years. How do you do your brew?
I make Chai from scratch decently often. I use whole spices, give them a couple cracks with a pestle and add them to a pot of boiling water along with loose leaf black tea. I then let it continue to boil, or just cut the heat for a couple minutes, then add milk. I then bring it back to a boil, and wait for it to try to boil over. When it tries to boil over, you beat back the foam and take it off heat for a little. If you do that over and over, eventually, it won’t foam up anymore because those proteins have denatured. That’s when the tea gets that nice and silky texture. I’ll also throw some honey in there.
I always make a big pot and have plenty of leftovers for cold chai.
I don’t really measure anything, even though I should. I also change up ingredients. At a minimum, I always have green cardamom, ginger, and tea, but sometimes I also use black cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, nutmeg, black pepper, or vanilla.
- Heat water to 70 degrees using electric kettle.
- Put loose leaf green tea in a strainer thingy. Leave room for it to expand 4 times as big
- Swoosh some of the 70 degree water around a glass kettle to heat it up, pour it out.
- Put strainer with tea in glass kettle.
- Pour water over tea.
- Let sit for a few minutes.
- Drink.
- Reuse the same leafs throughout the day using same steps.
I usually use unflavored green tea with decent quality. Very different from tea bags.
Ive been mostly doing western style with an infuser basket and a temperature controlled kettle, but I also have a gaiwan for when I feel like sitting down and doing a gongfu session.
Spring/summer Im mostly drinking chinese greens (longjing and biluochun) and high mountain oolongs (alishan, baozhong, dong ding). Fall/wintee I might still have those occasionally but Ill do more wuyi and dancong oolongs (shuixian, duckshit), and the occasional ripe puer
Baozhong/pouchong is awesome, one of my faves :)
Thats always the first one to go when I get my springtime order. I try to make it last but its so good its hard to not reach for it
With bags like a savage usually, no sugar or milk. I’d up my tea game but I’m usually more of a coffee drinker.
Glad I’m not the only uncultured swine here haha.
Toss a big mug of water in the microwave with like 3 teabags in it. Nuke it for like 2 minutes 30 seconds. Then I add some French vanilla creamer in it and a ice cube to cool it down. Yum yum . If I really need some caffeine I add like 5 tea bags and make sure I squeeze them after microwaving.
You will answer for your crimes.
India, China, Britain, all Arabian countries and the Friesians just declared war on you specifically.
You should be in prison.
I just dunk the whole bag in room temperature water and suck on them throughout the day.
As a British person, I want to go mad with the downvotes here.
Wondering how it is done in Britain is a big part of what inspired this question. What would your say is the common method?
Tea bag in a mug. Boil the kettle. Pour boiling water into mug. Give it a little stir and leave it for a couple of minutes. Remove tea bag. Add sugar and milk to desired taste. I’d say that’s probably the way most brits make a cup of tea.
Whether or not you have sugar is quite controversial too. I was raised in a “look down on the sugar people” family. Some people are more live and let live. I think I try to be the latter but if you say you want 3 sugars I have my nans voice in my head going “If you hate the taste of tea that much just have something else”.
Usually I drink Yorkshire Gold with sugar and a little evaporated milk.
SpiffingBrit approved comment right here.
Yorkshire with microfiltered milk for me; utterly, utterly divine
Yorkshire Red, neat, over ice.
Three of the small tea bags and a liter cup of ice.
Electric kettle, just off the boil, four minutes brew time.
If I have the time and ingredients, I’ll keep it hot, one tea bag, and do a splash of cream/milk with some Demerara sugar.
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Depends on tea…
I start with boiling water because I don’t have a fancy kettle.
Tea bags? Leave in for a while, sometimes indefinitely, sometimes til the string annoys me. Black unflavored?With a little half and half. Sometimes brown sugar, tannin content depending. Black flavored (like Earl grey)? Plain. Green? A little honey. Most others? Plain
Loose? Timing depends on tea type, and can change based on specific tea and quality. Usually: Black/flavored green/lower quality teas? 3 minutes first brew, 5 till indefinite minutes second brew. Green? 1 minute first brew, 2 minutes second brew, 5 minutes third brew. Oolong/puer? 5 second rinse, toss the rinse, 20 second first brew. Or, without rinse, 30 second first brew. 1 minute second brew, 2 minute third brew, etc.
A lot of loose leaf depends on tea to water ratio too, these work for me. Quality and size of leaf effects how quickly the flavor can get into the water. Sometimes I’ll just stand over the brewing tea and sniff the whole time to determine best brew time. I might be a little crazy about it though.
Cold brew over night, unsweetened
I have a really nice Bodum glass kettle that I use every day. I usually drink it with a bit of honey. For chai, black tea, and other dessert-y teas, I like to add a bit of milk (powdered or almond).
I really like disposable, compostable tea bags. They’re made of the same stuff as coffee filters. But tbh I use pre bagged most days because I’m lazy.
On special occasions we bring out the Yixing
Electric kettle + Celestial Apple Cinnamon tea in a Yeti thermos. Let brew for 3-4 hours. It is absolutely glorious.
I didnt know you could brew it that long and have it taste good! Do you just use one bag and leave it on the counter?
Infuser in hot water for two minutes, add cream and sugar after removing infuser
Electric kettle. Boiling water. Infuser basket in tea pot for 3 - 5 minutes depending on the type of tea. Drink pot and repeat around 1400
Electric kettle + tea berry and a one minute timer. Leave the bag in for extra goodness.
And milk ofc
No milk for me, just strong tea.
