Hey teaheads!
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In this video, how to cold brew tea.
In this video I'm going to be explaining the cold brewing process, and brewing a couple
of teas.
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Okay.
So we're in Oaxaca, in Mazunte - a beautiful, beautiful area of the world.
Behind me is Mermejita beach.
It's breakfast time.
We've just finished breakfast, and it looks like it's setting itself up to be another
hot day.
We're going to go explore, and we want to drink tea, but we don't want to be brewing
hot tea.
We want to be carrying cold tea with us.
So let me explain the cold brewing process is very simple.
You're putting leaf in cold water and extracting it at a very slow rate.
If you imagine inside the leaf there are many compounds, many flavour compounds and volatiles
which extract at different rates.
So think of it like a 100 meter race.
Some compounds reach the finish line i.e. they become extracted in the water before
others.
When you're brewing with HOT water you're watching that race in fast motion.
So the time difference between the FIRST compounds and the last compounds being released is very,
very small, which means you've got the get it right exactly with hot brewing, make sure
you stop the brewing process at exactly the right time to get the flavour profile for
your tastes.
With cold brewing it's like watching that race in slow motion.
The time difference between the FIRST compounds and the LATER compounds being released is
much, much larger.
That means that you have a big time window to have a flavour profile that you really
like.
Now the LATER compounds to be released tend to be the more tannic, bitter notes, or the
catechins in green tea.
Therefore, cold brewed tea tends to be less bitter, less astringent, you can brew stronger,
have more of the theanine, umami, vegetal notes.
You can have more of the high, fresh, juicy notes, but you don't have the bitterness and
the astringency.
That's what cold brewing affords, and that's the reason why cold brewing is used predominantly
in green tea.
But today I'm going to be brewing a Taiwanese Amber GABA, is a GABA Oolong made in Taiwan,
and this is a BLACK tea, a ruby black, or also known as Sun Moon Lake Black, a very,
very lovely, fresh, vibrant black tea with lots of menthol, and eucalyptus, and cinnamon
notes to it.
So we're going to be seeing how they shape up in a cold brewed tea.
The way that I like to cold brew tea is brew my tea hot first, just like I would any other
tea, drink my tea with breakfast, and then take the leaf and put them into the cold brew
bottle.
I would then fill this up with cold water put on the lid, and then I can walk around
all day drinking through this very handy filter so I don't get the tea leaves in my mouth,
and when the water out I just fill up with more cold water.
The reason why I like to brew with hot water first -- well, there are TWO reasons.
The first reason is I like to make sure that the leaf is completely sterile before I put
it in cold water.
This leaf is going to be sitting in cold water for many hours, so I want to make sure that
it starts off as sterile as possible to make sure that we don't have any bacteria build-up
in the water.
Some people brew tea in a style called "sun tea brewing", which is just taking cold water
and leaf and leaving it out in the hot sun.
I would NOT recommend you do that, because that really is ENCOURAGING bacterial growth.
I think that the best way is to use hot water on leaf, and that way you make sure you've
got a sterile product before you pour the cold water over the top.
The second reason why I like brewing hot water is that it just speeds up the extraction process.
So the leaf - especially if it's a ball-rolled Oolong, as in this tea - will start to open
up much quicker.
If I put ball-rolled Oolong in cold water it would take three, four hours before I really
get the flavour of tea, whereas now this ball-rolled Oolong, because it's been brewed already,
is already starting to open up.
It's probably going to be an hour, an hour-and-a-half, two hours before I can really taste the tea.
Right.
We're going to pour COLD water over these tea leaves, and we're going to go explore
Oaxaca, and then we'll let you know how they taste.
Hey guys.
Welcome to Mermejita beach.
A beautiful, wild beach here.
STUNNINGLY beautiful.
The sun is about the set and we've had an amazing day exploring Mazunte and Oaxaca,
walking around drinking our cold brewed tea.
It's just been the greatest way to explore and stay hydrated with delicious tea.
Let me tell you a little bit about the tasting.
I definitely prefer the Ruby Black tea compared to the Amber GABA Oolong.
They were both good, but the Ruby Black just seems to be fresher and brighter.
I think that fine-picked tea - so buds and one leaf, or buds and two leaves - tend to
be better suited to cold brew, because they just have more vibrancy, more freshness than
the Oolong teas.
The Oolong teas have third - and potentially fourth - leaves that have more starchy, buttery,
rounded flavours, which are delicious for these kind of lovely, silky Oolong teas - hot
brewed - but seem NOT to be well-suited to cold brew where you want that freshness and
brightness.
So I prefer the Ruby black.
Has this lovely, cinnamon, eucalyptus, menthol notes which are PERFECT cold brewed.
We filled these bottles up AT LEAST three times today with very cold water.
I would recommend that you use cold water.
If you use room temperature water - especially on a day like this when it's warm - the water
will heat up too quickly, and you'll start to get a kind of lukewarm tea which could
potentially develop some bacteria if left long enough.
So I prefer very cold water, and I would recommend that you use very, very cold water.
You don't have to use these bottles.
These bottles are great, and the link to buy them will be in the description below, but
you can use any bottle that you would like.
You can use glass if you want to avoid using plastics.
You can brew this in the FRIDGE if you want - so very, very cold brewing.
That might take a bit longer.
But you can certainly brew in whatever container you would like, but these are very convenient
because of the filter, so you can just drink throughout the day.
The amount of leaf that you use, about one teaspoon for every 300 ml of water, so similar
to western-style brewing.
I REALLY recommend that you do what I did this morning, which is brew hot water first
- one steeping of hot tea first - because it took less than an hour for these to start
to develop enough flavour where you could drink it as tea in cold water.
If I was putting dry leaf into cold water it would take two or three hours.
This was just under an hour and we were drinking lovely, lovely cold brewed tea.
I hope that you experiment with cold brew, and find some lovely flavour combinations,
and enjoy them.
Please put them in the comments below so we can find out what you're drinking too.
That's it teaheads.
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If you have any questions or comments then please fire them over.
Other than that, I'm Don Mei from Mei Leaf, saying goodbye from the most BEAUTIFUL Mermejita
beach in Oaxaca Mexico.
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.