Don Mei : Hey teaheads!
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In this video : Three Ways To Make Iced Tea.
In this video I'm going to be sharing with you three different methods for making iced
cold tea, and we're going to be trying to choose a winner.
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It is a sunny Sunday in London.
Summer has finally arrived, and it is hot, and whenever the weather heats up we all crave
a nice, cold drink.
Now, you can drink hot tea on a sunny day.
In fact, hot drinks in hot weather has been shown to help cool you down just as much - if
not more - than drinking cool drinks.
But hey, there is nothing better on a hot day than sitting back with an iced cold drink.
I'm always disappointed - whenever you go to barbeques, or you visit friends - that
there isn't more iced tea about.
Everyone is drinking juices, or drinking alcoholic beverages, but where is the iced tea?
Those bottled iced teas that you can buy in the shops [tend] to have a lot of artificial
flavors, or lots of sugar in [them], and they don't use high-quality tea.
You are all teaheads, [and] we want to really maximize the flavor, texture, and aroma of
the tea when we are making iced tea.
So let's go through the different methods.
[First] of all, I'm working here with a green tea.
Let me see if you can see this.
You know what?
I'll put it in a glass so you can see the color.
This is a Makino Hare Shizuoka Sen Cha.
This is fukamushi, which means it's deep-steamed, and that's going to give the iced tea a beautiful
color - a really nice green color.
This is a tea that we're planning to get into stock at Mei Leaf, so keep your eye open for
that.
The reason why I've picked this tea is because green tea is the most sensitive.
It's the most sensitive to reacting with time.
It's also a great tea for ice, because it has so many of those bright, light aromas,
[and] so much of those fresh aromas, that iced tea just really suits well with it.
But you can do this with all teas.
This tea is probably the most sensitive, and so the attributes that we can assign to each
different method of brewing iced tea - the flaws and the successes - will be amplified
with the green tea.
So that's why I've picked the green tea.
All right, let's go through the method.
Method number one is probably the most simple method, and the method that most people use,
which is simply that you brew the tea as you would normally brew it.
So in this case I brewed 2 teaspoons in about 500 [milliliters] of water, and the water
is at about 75 or 80 degrees [Celsius], which is about 170 [to] 175 [degrees] Fahrenheit.
[I] brewed it for about a minute-and-a-half [to] two minutes, until I was happy with the
strength, and then I just strained it off into this jug, [let] it go to room temperature,
and then put it in the fridge and let it cool.
So this was done overnight.
It cooled overnight, and we did this yesterday.
You can take a look at the color of this.
Now, the color [is] slightly more yellow, and slightly more cloudy, than the fresh-brewed
tea.
So that is method number one, and probably the most common method.
Method number two is this one.
[For] this one this is cold-brewed tea.
[I've] done a video on cold-brewed tea before.
I'll put a link in the description below if you're interested to find out more about that.
But this is cold-brewed, which basically means [that] we've taken the same amount of leaf,
and the same amount of water, but we've just poured cold water over the leaf and put it
in the fridge.
[This] has taken its time to extract over about - I would say about 14 hours or so it's
been sitting in the fridge extracting - and the beautiful thing about cold-brewed is [that]
because it's in cold water it doesn't extract too much of the tannins, so you don't get
too much of the bitter notes of tea.
So even though the leaf - as you can see - is sitting at the bottom of this container, it
hopefully has not gone bitter.
So we're going to try that one.
There you go.
[That's] a cold-brewed method.
Now, you can take the leaves and brew them with hot water, and then once you've finished
a session [you can] take those leaves that still have a few more infusions to go, put
them in cold water, and cold-brew that way.
But I wanted to make these exactly the same so we have a fair comparison.
Okay, so these are the first two methods, and I had to do these in advance for obvious
reasons.
Now let's brew up the third method.
The third method is "flash-chilled".
[This] is what we do at the Mei Leaf teahouse, so if you ever visit us in London, in Camden,
and you order an iced tea from us, then we will flash brew it, which means we're going
to brew it fresh and then shake it over ice.
[I'm] going to put these two teaspoons of the Makino Hare Fukumushi Sen Cha in there.
I'm going to rinse this out.
The wonderful thing about working in the garden [is that] you can just pour anywhere you want.
[So], we're going to try to match the same amount of liquid, which is not going to be
too easy, but we'll to try.
[Normally], I'd be pouring to kind of where the spout joins the teapot - about here.
That's something in the region of about 450 [milliliters], [or] something like that.
But because we're going to be shaking this over ice we want to do less than that.
So I'm going to do about half.
So here we go.
We're going to pour it in, I would say, to about here.
That's about half.
[Then] we're going to leave it.
Again, I think that with flash-chilled teas you want to leave it just a little bit longer
- maybe about two minutes - so that you extract the most amount of flavor.
Now, what we're going to be doing after that is we're going to be straining this tea over
ice.
[You don't need a shaker].
You can do this in a jug, like this, and just put some ice in and stir it.
[A shaker] not necessary.
Shaking it is a more flashy way to do it, but it also means that you get these little
ice crystals forming, which gives it a slightly more refreshing feel to it.
So, these are the teas.
[While] this is brewing let's have a little sniff of the dry leaf.
[SMELLS TEA] Oh!
This is a beautiful Sen Cha.
[It's] fresh-picked.
I'm getting notes of toasted rice, fresh cut grass - obviously, that very, very green [type].
[There's] not too many sea notes, [like] not too many marine air notes, [but] more like
stream, like forest stream, like that very fresh, forest stream air.
So you're getting a bit of the pine, [a] bit of the grass, you're getting the rocks, [and]
you're getting that stream, but there is a definite warmth to it.
I would put it as toasted rice, and] potentially kind of yellow bamboo, [and] those kinds of
notes.
Okay.
Right.
So, now that we have our tea brewed - I think that was about two minutes, [or] something
like that.
You guys are on the stopwatch, not me.
[Now], the idea is to pour this through a strainer.
You can pour [directly], and have the leaves in here, and shake it like that, and then
strain afterwards.
[That's] completely up to you.
[There's] not problem, [and] you can do that.
At this point you could also add flavorings, like maybe some herbs.
Maybe [you might add] some mint, [or] maybe you would throw some ginger in.
So, you shake it all up together.
That's also possible to do as well.
We'll talk a little bit about that in a second.
All right.
[I] think that that's good.
So, we're going to pour this out through a filter.
You have to filter these Sen Cha [teas] - especially the fukamushi.
Because the fukamushi is deep-steamed it means that the leaf is really broken up quite a
lot, so you need to put it through a nice, fine, filter like this.
[We're] just going to make sure that that has gone through.
Okay.
You can use this again.
You can throw this in cold-brew, and it would brew up really, really nicely.
I'm just going to put that to the side.
Okay, so now I want to try and judge how much ice to put in to try and match it.
It's always a surprising quantity.
I'm going to put in probably about nine cubes of ice.
Put this on.
This is where I make a mess.
Shake it up, and you can feel it just going cold immediately.
Okay, so here we go.
Right.
So now we're going to pour this iced tea into this glass.
I think I've done a pretty good job of matching the amounts.
So let's put them all together, and you can see.
Method one... method two... [and] method three.
[First] of all, let's talk about color.
Obviously this color has oxidized.
You can see that it's gone much more yellow, [so] it's oxidized.
[The] reason for that is [that] because it was brewed with hot water it extracted everything
out, but then it was left for too long.
It was left in the fridge, [and] that's reacting with the oxygen - in just little chamber - it's
reacting with it, and it's starting to oxidize.
That means it's going to affect not [only] the color, but it should also affect the flavor.
Whereas these two are beautiful, beautiful colors, right?
[They're] a nice light green.
[If] you ask me which my favorite is it would be this one here, because this is a deeper
green, it's still very vibrant [and] still very fresh, but is a deeper green, and looks
really, really, really enticing.
I can't wait to taste that.
All right, so those are the looks, but let's do a taste test.
These are fresh out of the fridge, so they are very, very cold as well.
Now, you can garnish, you can do whatever you want, you can add yourself a little stem
of lemongrass, some ginger - as little slice of ginger - or some mint leaves.
As I said before, you could also flavor these at any point.
So if you wanted to add some fruit nectars, [or if] you wanted to add some cordial, you
could.
That's completely up to you, but I wanted to taste what they're like just pure.
All right, so here we go.
Method one... method two... and finally - the beautifully frothy, method three.
This is where I pour tea all over my phone.
Okay, and since this has ice in it, there's nothing sadder than a cold drink without some
clinking sound going on, so you've got to throw an ice cube in to keep it cold, that
way you get the nice clinky effect.
Okay, so visually, clearly, this is the winner, but let's go with texture first.
So I'm not going to concentrate on taste, [but] just concentrate on texture and finish.
[SIPS TEA] [This has] good texture [which is] quite - I would say - medium, but the
finish is definitely drier.
I can feel the oxidation that has happened.
I can feel this drying sensation throughout my whole mouth.
[SIPS TEA] Ah!
[This one is] a world of difference.
[It's] soft [and] smooth.
The cold brewing makes it thicker.
Because the leaf has been in there it's [really, really] developed that body over the 12 [to]
14 hours.
The body is really thick [and] soft, [with] no dryness, and I already am getting a lot
more taste out of it, but we'll talk about that later.
Finally, the flash-chilled [SIPS TEA].
I would say [that] the texture is somewhere in between for this one.
So because you've hot-brewed - because we've used hot water to brew - you are pulling out
those tannins a bit more, and so I'm getting the texture, but it's a much more light, biting
texture.
It's a dryness which [is] more of a mineral dryness.
It's actually quite an enjoyable dryness, and it's more on the front of the tongue rather
than catching on the throat.
[I'll] try one more time.
[SIPS TEA] Yeah.
This is a kind of clawing, catching sensation, [SIPS TEA] whereas this is like a nice, minerally,
chalky kind of dryness that's actually quite quenching.
Right, let's move on to taste.
I can already tell you that this one is not making me very happy at all.
[SIPS TEA] It tastes old.
[Okay], I'm getting the cut grass.
I'm getting the [green] bamboo, but it just tastes old.
I mean, I can't really put it any better way.
It tastes like it's been sitting.
It tastes slightly stagnant.
It just doesn't have the same vibrancy as you would want from this tea.
[This] is why green tea is a great one to test it on, because you'll really notice it
with a green tea.
[SIPS TEA] Hey, it's not unpleasant.
It's a bit bitter.
It's kind of got more [dry], grass notes, [and] a little bit of hay, and it's just dialed
down in terms of the brightness.
It's like you've taken an EQ on a nice bit of music and you've taken the treble off.
It's just very, very dull-tasting.
Okay, [now] the cold brew.
[SIPS TEA] Wow!
[There's] so much more.
Okay, so we've talked about texture [which is] a lot thicker.
But the taste is [SIPS TEA] -- I'm getting green bamboo.
I'm getting mineral.
I'm starting to pick up some of the floral notes, [like a] very kind of light dusting
of kind of high note hyacinth aroma - those kind of sweet, meadow flowers.
But [it's] very, very light.
It's not a floral tea by any stretch of the imagination.
but it's there.
The umami is coming through as well, [and] I'm getting that slight savory note to it,
which is great with Japanese green teas.
[SIPS TEA] [It's] bright - very bright - but balanced as well.
So I'm getting the umami, [and] I'm getting the toasted rice notes.
But those slight floral notes [and] the cut grass is not really cut grass.
It's more like uncut grass.
It's more like when you're sitting in a meadow and you're kind of having a picnic, and you're
lying down, you're getting that kind of just nice, fresh grass, but quite early-morning
dewey kind of grass taste.
[It's] delicious though.
I would be so happy if I went to a barbeque this summer and somebody was serving this.
That would make my day.
Okay, [now for the] flash-chilled.
[It's] a beautiful color, beautiful.
[It's] darker [and] more rich.
[SIPS TEA] [It's a] powerhouse.
[It's] full-flavored.
As I said, it's got more of the dryness.
It's got some of those tannins coming out, but I really like that.
If you don't like that then brew with cooler water and you'll control that.
But the flavor [SIPS TEA] -- now I'm getting a lot more of the cut grass.
I'm getting a lot more complexity.
There's something - yeah . I don't know if you know these umeboshi - these [Japanese]
pickles; kind of sweet, fragrant japanese pickles that they put on the side of dishes
like rice dishes, or sushi, when they're serving in Japanese restaurants.
They're these pickles, and umeboshi is one of my favorite ones.
It's kind of got a very floral, rosy flavor.
[SIPS TEA] Gorgeous!
This one has the most amount of complexity.
So, selecting - or choosing - a winner, clearly this is out.
[This] is what I would advise people to stay away from.
If you're going to [make iced tea] then please don't make this method, because it's not going
to do justice to the tea that you're using.
These two, however, are both amazing.
They are both delicious.
The difference is, I would say [that], the pros of this one is texture.
The texture of this [one] is so rich, thick, and soft.
It's a very smooth, soft drink.
You get a lot of flavor, more of the bright notes, more of the high notes, less of the
tannic notes, less of the bitterness, [and] less of that kind of satisfying quench than
this one.
This one has the most amount of flavor.
It's the most complex, and it has that bitterness which leads to sweetness, and I love really
love that.
But if you're looking for something that's very soft and elegant then this is probably
the one to choose.
Up to you, guys.
Feel free to experiment, [and] let me know the outcomes of your experiments in the comments
section below.
That's it teaheads.
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If you're ever in London then come and visit us at the Mei Leaf teahouse in Camden to say
"Hi!" and taste our wares.
If you have any questions or comments then please fire them over.
Other than that, I'm Don Mei, on a beautiful summer day in London.
Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea.
Stay away from those teabags, keep drinking the good stuff, and spread the word, because
nobody deserves bad tea.
Bye [WAVING].