Hey teaheads!
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In this video, should you be rinsing your teas?
In this video I'm going to be going through some of the theories about WHY you should
be rinsing teas, and we're going to test some of them out.
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So it's Sunday here in London, and I check out my YouTube channel, and there was a question
from a viewer asking me to explain why and how you rinse teas.
In China there's an expression that the tea wash - or the tea rinse - is the tea for your
enemies.
Why is that?
What are the theories?
Before we get into that let's quickly go through HOW you rinse your teas.
You would be pouring the same temperature water as you would be brewing, at a relatively
large height, to agitate the leaves up [GESTURES AGITATING LEAVES], and then you would be waiting
5 to 10 seconds and then [GESTURES POURING OUT LIQUID] pouring off that wash and just
discarding it.
Then your leaves are ready for the first infusion.
Some of the theories as to why you rinse your tea.
The first theory is pretty self-explanatory, and makes a lot of sense.
[that] it's just purely for tea appreciation.
If you rinse your teas then you have a tea wash that you can pour into your cups and
teaware that will warm the tea cups, and also release some of the aroma of the tea so you
can start to excite the nose of your guests - including yourself.
So it's just purely for tea appreciation.
That makes sense.
The second reason is to warm up your teaware.
If I pour from a kettle into a cold Gai Wan, or a cold teapot with the leaf inside, then
SOME of the water temperature is going to be used to warm up the teaware, the material
itself.
That means that the brewing temperature will drop and you will not have a consistent brew.
So if you pour hot water over your leaf beforehand then you are, in effect, warming your teaware.
Now some people will also pour hot water directly into an empty cup before they put the leaves
in - including myself . That's also something that you can do.
But certainly, if you don't want to do that, then rinsing your teas helps to warm up the
teaware for an even brew.
That makes sense too.
The THIRD reason is specifically related to AGED teas.
Aged teas - especially cooked Puerh teas - may have a kind of musty smell from storage or
from fermentation.
If you get a relatively low quality, cooked Puerh, then it may also have a kind of fishy,
or dried squid, aroma.
Tea sellers may refer to it as a "marine air" aroma, but really we're talking about kind
of a fishy smell.
That usually comes from relatively poorly made cooked Puerh teas.
But if you've got that tea and you want to drink it then pouring hot water over the leaves,
and rinsing it one or two times, will help to release some of those aromas, and you'll
have a much nicer tasting tea.
The FOURTH reason for rinsing tea, that we're OFTEN told, is [that] you need to CLEAN your
tea.
Right.
What are we cleaning it from?
There are a few things.
The first thing that people talk about is pesticides, and that's something that we need
to address.
Pesticides are generally sprayed on lower quality crops that are at at lower altitude,
and that are picked in the wrong seasons - kind of late spring and summer.
The reason for that is [that] late spring and summer and lower altitude has more likelihood
of insects and pests that will be eating the leaves and destroying the crops.
[At] higher altitude [there are] less pests [and] that is one of the reasons why high
altitude tea is more revered than lower altitude tea.
But really, this boils down to you finding suppliers that you can trust [who] are buying
teas at the right season, from responsible tea farmers, and then getting the teas tested
as well.
Also, pesticides tend to go in through the roots and up into the leaves, so actually
rinsing the tea leaves is not going to have a major effect.
So I don't think that pesticides should be part of your concern when considering whether
or not to rinse your leaves.
The SECOND reason for rinsing leaves that is often talked about is just removing impurities
and dirt.
Now sure, tea leaves will - in the process of being produced, and stored, and traveling
- will have SOME impurities, but we're talking about very minimal impurities.
That is something that you CAN rinse and wash away.
The THIRD thing is the broken leaves, and the fannings, and the tea dusk.
Now especially if you're taking it from a Puerh cake, or you've got a tea that is not
such high quality, and not really clear, full leaves, there will be some dust and fannings,
and you want to try and pour those away.
The reason for that is [that] the larger the surface area - in other words, the smaller
the leaf fannings or dust - the more likelihood you're going to bring bitter notes into the
tea.
I'm going to pull the camera around.
We're going to take a look at this Gaiwan, we're going to pour some hot water in, and
you're going to see some of this tea dust, fannings. and impurities come away.
This is some cooked Puerh.
[POURS IN BOILING WATER] I'm just going to pour some boiling water from a nice height
here.
You can IMMEDIATELY see this kind of frothiness develop.
Don't get obsessed with froth, and whether or not it's bad, because actually a lot of
the froth AFTER the tea wash is due to saponins, and pectins, and sugars in the tea, so it's
not something bad.
[SCRAPES TOP OF GAIWAN WITH LID] But all of this stuff you can easily pour away just by
doing this [POURS OUT SOME TEA BY TIPPING GAI WAN].
This is what makes [the] Gai Wan very simple.
And now I'm just going to be [PUTS STRAINER ON GONG DAO BEI] pouring this with quite a
large space, to allow for a lot of the tea dust to leave, into the Gong Dao Bei [POURS
REMAINING TEA RINSE INTO GONG DAO BEI].
There we go.
That's an example of a tea wash.
Now we're going to bring the camera around and we're going to check out this infusion
and compare it to the first PROPER infusion.
So this is the tea wash [HOLDS UP GONG DAO BEI], and don't forget [that] I put it through
a fine filter [HOLDS UP FILTER] when I went from the Gai Wan to the Gong Dao Bei, so it
should have picked up a lot of the dust and fannings.
But let's just pour this [POURS TEA RINSE FROM GONG DAO BEI INTO GLASS] in here, [POURS
REMAINING TEA RINSE INTO TABLE] and I'm going to pour this away.
Now I'm going to IMMEDIATELY [POURS HOT WATER FROM KETTLE INTO GAI WAN] do my first infusion
of this cooked Puerh.
So again, [pour] from high.
It still has a little bit of bubbles, but the bubbles are slightly LARGER, [with] less
of this kind of FINE bubbles, which tends to mean that it's more about the saponins
and pectin rather than any kind of impurities.
[POURS FIRST INFUSION OF TEA FROM GAI WAN INTO GONG DAO BEI] Right.
This is the first, proper infusion, again going through a filter [POURS FIRST INFUSION
FROM GONG DAO BEI INTO FIRST TEA GLASS].
Let's see.
This is interesting.
[POURS FIRST INFUSION FROM GONG DAO BEI INTO SECOND TEA GLASS] I have no idea [of] the
results of this myself, but let's see if we notice any difference.
Right.
[CLOSE UP OF FIRST INFUSION TEA GLASS] I'm going to try and bring this into the camera.
So this one here is JUST brewed.
This is the one that you would normally be drinking.
[CLOSEUP OF TEA RINSE FILLED GLASS] This one here is the wash.
I can quite clearly see from here - [and] I hope that YOU can - that this one here [POINTS
TO TEA RINSE GLASS] is cloudier.
It's a lighter color, as you would expect, because [in] this one [POINTS TO FIRST INFUSION
GLASS] the leaves have started to open up, so they're ready to extract a lot more.
But if we try to ignore the color difference a little bit, from my eye here [POINTS TO
TEA RINSE GLASS] this one definitely looks a little bit cloudier.
So I DO think that there is some validity to the claim that rinsing, or washing, your
teas helps to get rid of some of those fannings and tea dust, which will mean that you have
a smoother, less bitter, brew, [which is] clearer as well.
Okay.
The FIFTH reason for rinsing your teas - which is often talked about - is ACTIVATING the
tea leaves.
In China there is a horrible translation which is "MOISTURIZING the tea leaves", which doesn't
make any sense to me [when] I imagine putting moisturizing cream on leaves.
The idea is that for certain teas - ESPECIALLY ball-rolled Oolongs like this [HOLDS UP HOLDER
OF BALL ROLLED OOLONG LEAVES], so your kind of classic, ball-rolled Oolongs from Taiwan
or China - because they're all tightly rolled up it takes a while for the water to unravel
them, and open them up, and therefore for them to extract properly.
[So] if you rinse, or wash, the teas beforehand, what you are doing is kind of activating the
leaves, you're opening them up, you're taking the ones that are a little bit tighter [and]
giving them a chance to open up.
That means that your brew is going to be more EVEN.
That's the theory.
The other idea is that if you've opened up your leaves briefly with the tea wash then
it means that your steepings can be at a shorter time, so you can do quicker steepings, and
as we all know, longer steeping has more of a potential to release bitter notes into the
tea.
So shorter steeping means you're going to get the aromas, and less of the bitterness.
This is a theory which I've never actually tested out myself, so now I'm going to set
up this Gong Fu set, and we're going to try it out.
We'll be right [SNAPS FINGERS AND CAMERA VIEW CHANGES TO NEW TABLE SETUP] back.
Okay.
We've got some Alishan Cream here [HOLDS UP POT OF TEA LEAVES], which is a lightly oxidized,
Taiwanese Oolong.
The reason why I've picked [it] is because it's ball-rolled, so it's going to take longer
to open up, and also because it's a GREEN Oolong it has more tendency to have bitterness.
[CLOSEUP OF WASHED TEA LEAVES IN GLASS TEAPOT] So this one is the leaf that I've already
washed, and you can see that the leaf has started to open up, [HOLDS UP UNWASHED LEAVES
IN GLASS TEAPOT] and I can compare that to the one that I have not.
So this is the dry, Ali Shan cream.
What we're going to TRY to do is get an even brew between the two so I can GENUINELY taste
the difference.
[HOLDS UP POT WITH UNWASHED LEAVES] This one is going to take a bit longer.
[POURS HOT WATER FROM KETTLE INTO TEAPOT WITH WASHED LEAVES] Right.
Let's pour some [hot water] into the leaf that's already been washed.
[POURS HOT WATER FROM KETTLE INTO TEAPOT WITH UNWASHED LEAVES] I will also pour [into the
other pot] from a nice height to get the leaves moving around.
That will help to even up the bew as well.
Okay.
[PUTS STRAINER ON SERVING CUP AND THEN TAKES IT OFF] You know what?
I'm going to pour it without the filters, just to see if we can pick up any more of
this cloudiness.
I don't EXPECT to see too much [POURS NEW INFUSION OF WASHED TO INTO SERVING CUP] , because
this is a high quality Oolong and therefore shouldn't have much dust floating around,
but it's worth doing this extra comparison.
So I can see the color of this [POINTS TO WASHED LEAF LIQUOR IN FIRST SERVING CUP] liquor
now, and I've got to try and get it so that THIS one [HOLDS UP TEAPOT WITH UNWASHED LEAVES]
is going to be about the same color.
I think it needs a little bit longer.
This is the extra steeping time that we're talking about, that MAY - and we'll find out
- release some more of the bitter notes.
My suspicion is that this is going to be MORE of a factor when you're dealing with western
style brewing [POURS NEW INFUSION OF UNWASHED LEAVES INTO SERVING CUP] where your steeping
times are longer generally.
But it might not not have such an effect here.
Let's see.
It's interesting to test.
Okay.
This [POURS WASHED LEAF LIQUOR INTO DRINKING GLASS] is the one that was washed, and this
one [POURS UNWASHED LEAF LIQUOR INTO DRINKING GLASS] is the one that was not.
Let's see if we can see any difference in the color [HOLDS UP WASHED LEAF TEA LIQUOR]
[in the] washed one [HOLDS UP UNWASHED LEAF TEA LIQUOR] versus the [unwashed] one.
I did a pretty good job, I think, of evening out the brews so that we can see that they're
ABOUT the same color.
I don't really see any difference in terms of clarity, and that's what I mean.
If you've got good tea in the FIRST place - especially with ball-rolled Oolongs - you
don't want much dust and fanning.
That would be a bad sign ANYWAY.
If you've got good tea then that's not such a factor.
Okay.
Let's taste [SIPS WASHED TEA].
Floral, creamy, that [Jing Xuan?]
creaminess and butteriness.
Very nice [and] very clean, and has enough of a bite [through] the end of it to give
it satisfaction.
[SIPS UNWASHED TEA] Definite discernible difference.
Certainly, it's got nothing to do with bitterness, but this [POINTS TO UNWASHED TEA] tea tastes
WEAKER.
Even though it's the same color [HOLDS UP BOTH DRINKING GLASSES], [and] I would say
it's the same strength, THIS one [POINTS TO WASHED TEA] has definitely got more complexity,
and more of the chemicals and compounds in here have been extracted, because the leaf
has had a chance to open up, and therefore the water has been able to extract more of
the flavor.
So even though we've got the same COLOR [SIPS WASHED TEA] this is rich [with] a thicker
mouthfeel, [SIPS UNWASHED TEA] [and] this is MUCH thinner.
[There is] definitely [a] very, very big difference.
The next brew of this [POINTS TO UNWASHED TEA] will be perfect, so that's not to say
that there's anything WRONG with drinking the tea wash, but in terms of tea appreciation
this one [POINTS TO UNWASHED TEA] is definitely weaker than [POINTS TO WASHED TEA] this one
- but NO bitterness in either.
As I said, I think that this [bitterness] would more show itself if you brewed western
style, where you have a SMALLER amount of leaf and therefore you have to steep for longer
periods of time anyway.
Okay.
The LAST reason that people talk about rinsing teas is to remove some of the caffeine.
This is something that's been spread amongst the tea industry a lot.
This is something that I would ignore, because really, if you want to reduce the caffeine
the studies that have been done show that you would need to rinse the tea for about
30 seconds in order to reduce the caffeine by about 10 percent, and you would have to
rinse the tea for a MINUTE in order to [reduce] 20 percent of the caffeine.
That's NOT a huge reduction.
It's a little bit.
But by the time you’re getting to one-minute rinses you're actually throwing away a LOT
of the nice flavor of the tea.
So I don't think that you should be too concerned about that, or that that should be part of
the consideration when rinsing teas.
Okay.
I HOPE that answers the viewer's question.
That's it teaheads.
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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.