Don Mei : Hey teaheads.
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
IN THIS video: Tea Tasting - To SLURP or NOT to slurp.
In this video I'm going to get ULTRA-geeky and talk about the ways that you can discern
the BEST flavour from tea, and specifically, talking about whether or not you should be
SLURPING your tea.
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Okay.
How do you get the best out of your tea.
I realize that everybody knows how to drink, and everybody knows how to drink tea.
But for those people that REALLY want to try and extract the MOST amount of the volatile
aromatics of the tea, and to really start to get into a lot of detail in terms of the
FLAVOUR of tea, I want to talk about the BEST way to drink tea; specifically to talk about
whether not you should be slurping.
So let's talk about slurping a little bit.
There are TWO ways that most people slurp - from the cup to the mouth, like.
That's one way.
The SECOND way, which I've seen a lot in China is they put the tea in the mouth, and then
they kind of VAPORIZE the tea, like this Okay.
You've probably ALL seen people slurping tea.
Certainly, ever since I started to get into tea 12 years ago, I've always seen people
slurping tea.
I've copied that process and imitated that myself.
But over the last few years I've really been trying to work out whether or not the slurping
actually IMPROVES flavour, what it does, and kind of spent a lot of time being very geeky
about trying to analyse how BEST to extract the flavour of tea in your mouth, discern
the different FLAVOR profiles of a tea.
So let's talk about WHY people slurp.
I've looked online, I’ve spoken to a lot of people.
Generally there are FOUR reasons why people CLAIM that slurping improves the flavour of
the tea.
The FIRST is that it cools the tea down.
Obviously, if you have a very HOT tea and pour it into a cup, when you slurp it you're
exposing it to lots of air, and you're making the particles of the tea much SMALLER so it
will cool down.
This is CERTAINLY true.
Cooler tea is much easier to discern flavour rather than boiling hot tea.
There's a LOT of science in this.
Temperature AFFECTS flavour.
Why is it that, for example, ice cream is SWEET when you eat it frozen, but when you
allow it to go to ROOM temperature it tastes EVEN SWEETER?
Because the TEMPERATURE change makes a big difference in how you discern flavour.
I WILL be doing another video on this at some point in the future, but for now what we can
CERTAINLY say is that you can taste MORE with cooler tea.
So that is definitely a VALID point.
However, if you're using SMALL CUPS, like this, one of the beauties of using small cups,
as opposed to big mugs, is that the MOMENT I pour from here it's such a small volume
it will cool down quickly, and therefore it's not such a big deal, But certainly, slurping
DOES cool down your tea.
The SECOND thing that people say is that when you slurp your tea you are SOMEHOW exposing
the tea liquid to MORE parts of your tongue and your mouth.
I DON'T believe this at all.
I mean, if I drink this tea, and I make it swish around in my mouth, I'm covering ALL
the areas in my tongue and my mouth JUST AS MUCH as if I was vaporizing the tea through
ATOMIZING the tea slurping.
So I don't buy that one.
That's not something that I believe to be true.
The THIRD thing that people say is that by OXYGENATING the tea you're actually SOFTENING
the tannins, so you're reducing the astringency, making a smoother tea, and you're making the
tea more FLAVORFUL in terms of aromatics.
I have a Long Jing tea here.
Let me just brew my second infusion.
I have been experimenting with this - the geek that I am - and been trying to work out
whether or not this is true; whether or not adding extra OXYGEN into the tea brew improves
the flavour and the TEXTURE of the tea.
So this is the experiment.
I am going to pour away this infusion here, and I'm going to take this lovely Long Jing
tea, you can see here.
Give you a little close-up of it.
Nice Long Jing tea.
Make sure I'm focused.
Okay.
I'm going to decant this from a LOW height into the Gong Dao Bei.
Okay.
What I have here are two glass cups.
I'm going to pour HALF of this green tea into here, and I'm going to put ANOTHER half into
here.
Notice I'm pouring at a RELATIVELY low height, so I'm NOT introducing much oxygen in.
So this is EXACTLY the same brew EXACTLY the same tea.
Now I'm going to take THIS tea here and pour it BACK into the Gong Dao Bei, and then I'm
going to just basically ADD OXYGEN to the tea by PULLING it.
This is something they do a lot in parts of the subcontinent, with te tarik and other
types of PULLED tea.
What I'm doing is just basically creating a STREAM that allows for oxygen to be dissolved,
a little bit into the tea liquid.
I've only done that a COUPLE of times, right?
I'm going to now pour again from quite a large height into here.
Now HOPEFULLY, what you're going to NOTICE is a difference in the COLOR between these
two.
This was EXACTLY the same tea, but just this one has been PULLED a little bit.
Let me just try and get this close to you, so you can compare these colours.
Can you see that THIS one here is SLIGHTLY lighter than THIS one here?
This one has a BIT more of a GOLDEN tinge to it than this.
I HOPE that you can see that.
I certainly can see it visually here, and I've only pulled it a FEW times.
So what does that mean?
That means that CERTAINLY - especially with UNOXIDIZED tea - adding oxygen CHANGES the
tea.
There is NO QUESTION colour there is a DIFFERENCE in the tea.
I've done this MANY, many times, and tried it with different types of tea, and it ALWAYS
- especially with GREEN tea - makes the tea darker more golden.
In other words, more oxygenated, and therefore more oxidized.
So how does this affect flavour and texture?
Well, there is a SLIGHT, very small, flavour difference.
With the tea that's been oxygenated you get a LITTLE BIT more of an oxidized taste.
It starts to move slightly towards a WHITER tea, or if you imagine a green tea that's
been allowed to SIT for a little while.
It just tastes a little bit ROUNDER, nuttier, sweeter, but loses some of the FRESHER notes.
I terms of the TEXTURE, certainly with the oxygenated tea, there is a SLIGHT improvement
in terms of the smoothness.
So THIS one tastes more FRESH, but is a little bit more brisk, whereas THIS one tastes a
little bit ROUNDER - in terms of sweetness and nuttiness - and in terms of TEXTURE it's
slightly smoother.
But the differences are VERY, very small, and remember, I've pulled this a few times.
So when you're comparing it to slurping in the mouth, how much oxygen are you ACTUALLY
bringing into the tea, ARE you going to notice a difference?
In MY opinion - from all the tests that I've done, in terms of BLIND tasting A and B - slurping
does NOT really improve the texture or flavour of the tea.
It JUST does so if you pull it LOTS AND lots OF TIMES, AND ADD A lot OF OXYGEN in, then
you will start to notice a difference, but EVEN THEN the difference is very, very small.
That's the THIRD reason why people say you should slurp.
The LAST reason - and probably the MOST used reason - is that slurping allows the volatile
AROMATICS of the tea to ESCAPE the liquid, and therefore you are able to take in the
aroma of the tea a lot more than if you DON'T slurp.
My OPINION on this is, that is true.
Absolutely, if you slurp the tea a LITTLE bit - if you create some AGITATION in your
mouth - then some of the EXTRA volatile aromatics DO come out, and when you breathe out through
your nose you will pick up more of those aromatics than if you just drink flat and don't agitate
the tea at all.
However, the idea of doing THIS, where you create AGGRESSIVELY create lots of small water,
tea particles in your mouth, I think, does the ABSOLUTE opposite.
Despite what EVERYBODY says I really, really don't think it helps at all.
IN fact, what it does is just creates a lot of very fine WATER MIST in your mouth, so
when you breathe out through your nose it actually COVERS and DEADENS the ability for
you to pick up aromatics.
In fact, all you do is get kind of a WET aromatics.
You LOSE a lot of the complexity, because it just feels wet.
So if I do this I'm getting a lot of the HUMIDITY and WETNESS of the tea, but not so much of
the aromatics.
In conclusion, I think that AGGRESSIVE slurping is NOT something that improves the flavour
of the tea.
I DO think that some AGITATION is USEFUL.
So, this is how I drink tea - I'm sure that there will be PLENTY of people that disagree
with me, and you're MOST welcome to leave comments in the "comments" section below - but
this is how I like the taste tea.
What I like to do - I'll TALK it through, and then you'll SEE me do it - is breathe
out a little bit, just before bringing the cup to my mouth.
I like to SMELL a little bit of the liquor, and then I like to put SOME of the liquid
in my mouth with a LITTLE BIT of an agitating slurp, but nothing TOO MUCH.
All that does is it starts to break up the aromatics and release a few more of the volatile
chemicals in the tea.
The once it's IN my mouth I allow it to swish all around my tongue, the roof of my mouth,
palate, etcetera.
I MAY even kind of - it sounds a bit STRANGE - but move my TONGUE around a little bit,
just to kind of FLUTTER and keep that agitation going, but in a GENTLE way.
Then - this is the KEY - breathe OUT through your nose.
When you breathe out through your nose you're passing all the volatile aromatics through
your OLFACTORY canal - through the CHANNELS here - and you are PICKING UP the aroma in
such an INTENSE way, compared to sniffing THIS.
After that, you SWALLOW.
Remember, taste buds don't just stop in your tongue.
You're THROAT has the ability to taste as well.
After you've swallowed, breathe out through your nose again, just to pick up EVEN MORE
of those aromatics.
Let's give it a go.
Cheers.
This, for me, is the BEST way to get the flavour out of the tea.
It doesn't give me any of the kind of wetness and humidity that slurping aggressively does,
but it allows me to really TASTE the flavour and aromatics of the tea.
So why is it that people who do tea tasting are using little spoons and slurping, slurping,
slurping really aggressively?
I don't really know, but I have a theory that I read somewhere, and I think it's probably
true.
That MOST of these tea tasters were tasting very, very strong black tea.
Now remember, when tea tasters are tasting black tea they're intentionally OVER-BREWING
the tea in order to bring out the good AND the BAD, so they can taste ALL of the aromatics
of the tea.
So if you have 20 different, super-strong black teas in front of you - which are going
to be very, very astringent - you DON'T WANT to allow the tea to really cover your tongue
too much.
Instead, you want to try and pick up the AROMA of the tea through the volatiles.
You take a spoon and you briefly breathe in and ATOMIZE the tea, it creates all the aroma
molecules in your mouth, your tongue doesn't pick up too much of the tea, you're allowed
to pick up the aroma of the tea, and then you can move onto the next one.
Remember, they also tend to SPIT OUT the tea as well.
This is a particular STYLE of tasting just to really kind of gather the flavour notes
of 20 different teas.
But it CERTAINLY isn't tea appreciation in the way that a tea should be appreciated.
You should always SWALLOW your tea, because as I said, the taste buds also run down your
throat as well, and the whole JOY of gourmet tea tasting is the throat-feel and mouthfeel
and the texture, and ALL of those things that you don't get when you slurp from a spoon.
But I think the REASON why they were slurping from the spoon is because they had very, very
astringent black tea you can't start to really swill all of that black tea around your tongue
it will make your tongue very, very astringent and dry, and you won't be able to taste further
on.
I believe that THIS.
Feel free to disagree.
I would LOVE to hear your comments on how you drink tea, but that's it for now.
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Other than that, I'm Don Mei from Mei Leaf.
Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea.
Stay away from the tea bags, keep drinking the good stuff, and spread the word, because
nobody deserves bad tea.
Bye.