Hey teaheads!
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In this video, how to brew green tea.
In this video I'm going to show you how to get the BEST out of your green tea.
This video is going to go under the "Basic Tea Education" playlist :
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Okay.
This video comes as a direct response to a user called "ShareTheKey" on YouTube, who
wrote to us and asked us to make a video about how to brew green tea - specifically how to
get the right temperature water for green tea.
So this is an answer to you.
Okay.
First and foremost, this video is going to go through a GUIDELINE to brewing green tea.
Everybody is different.
Everyone likes their tea brewed differently.
That's perfectly fine, but this is a good starting point for you.
There are no hard and fast rules.
This is a good starting point for anybody who wants to brew green tea.
We've made a downloadable guide.
I'll put the link in the description below so you can download the guide and look at
all tea types, but this is for green tea.
The most important thing with ANY tea is [to] get good leaf.
There's no point in you having a bad starting point.
his is Huang Shan Mao Feng.
This is a very good, high quality green tea from Huang Shan.
There's an expression which goes, "You can never make good tea from bad leaf, but you
can ALWAYS make bad tea from good leaf."
That shows you, if you're starting with bad leaf, forget it, you're not going to produce
really high quality tea.
Even if you have very GOOD leaf you have to be careful in the way that you brew to make
sure that you get the best out of it.
Okay, so the brewing process.
Let's quickly just step back and look at the brewing process.
The brewing process is an extraction process.
Okay?
In this leaf there are hundreds of compounds, and all of them extract at different rates,
and differently.
The art of brewing, [and] the reason why people spend a lot of time learning, and experimenting,
with brewing, is the art of being able to extract exactly the right balance of these
compounds to get the right flavored tea for you.
Now green tea is well known for having very high levels of a compound called catechins.
Catechins are very high strength antioxidants that exist in high levels in green tea.
Catechins are very good for you, but they're also very bitter.
So we want to make sure, when we're extracting green tea - in other words, when we're brewing
- that we extract the right level of catechins so that we don't have excessive bitterness.
Commonly people say to me, "I don't like green tea.
It's too bitter."
Usually the reason for that is because either they've got bad tea, or, God forbid, they're
brewing from tea dust in tea bags, which extracts everything very quickly.
Or they are extracting too strong, probably using water that's too hot, or brewing it
for too long.
So, in the brewing process you have three brewing decisions to make, or three factors
which effect the balance that ends up in your cup.
The first is the amount of leaf you're going to use to water, right?
There are generally considered to be two schools of brewing: the western style [which is] more
economical [and] affordable brewing style, and then the Chinese style.
The only difference between them is the amount of leaf-to-water ratio.
With Chinese style they're using a lot of leaf to a small amount of water, whereas Western
style they're using a smaller amount of leaf to a larger amount of water.
Western style for green tea you're looking at something at around 2 grams per 300 ml
of water.
For Chinese style brewing you're looking at something like 5 grams to 6 grams per 200
ml of water.
So quite a difference, right?
Now, a lot of people say to me, "I don't know how to measure it, because I don't want to
pull out weighing scales."
After you've brewed many times you start to just do things by eye.
A good rule of thumb is a really large pinch.
Something like this - let me see if I can focus for you - is about 1.5 to 2 grams.
That would be sufficient for your 300 ml of water.
Right.
That's the amount of leaf.
Let's talk brewing times.
Western style is around 1.5 to 2 minutes.
Chinese style is around 10 seconds, something like that.
Maybe even five seconds once the leaf has started opening up.
So very different in terms of brewing time.
We spoken about leaf-to-water ratio.
We've talked about steeping time.
Now let's talk about what "ShareTheKey", the useR who wrote to us, would like, specifically,
to know about, which is water temperature.
I think that a good starting water temperature for green tea is about 80 degrees.
If you brew with boiling hot water what will happen is that it'll extract, very quickly,
EVERYTHING from the leave - including those catechins, and you have less control.
When you pour you have less control of reducing the amount of catechins in the actual tea
that you're drinking.
Now if you wanted to brew tea specifically for health - only for health, you didn't care
about taste, and just wanted the healthiest brew you could - then you would brew it hot
and you would steep it for a long time, and you would have a very strong bitter brew.
But we're brewing for flavor here.
We want to enjoy our tea so we'll drink lots and lots of it, right?
So we want to be able to CONTROL how much catechins are int he final tea, [and] we do
that by controlling temperature.
So let's brew some tea.
First thing I'm going to do is I've got some freshly boiled water here.
I'm just going to put some into each pot.
The reason I do this is because what we want to do is bring the teaware to a high temperature,
or a temperature which is closer to our brewing temperature.
If we don't do that then when we pour water into a cold pot the glass absorbs all of the
temperature, the heat, and we end up losing a lot of the heat, so you don't get the nice
consistent brewing temperature.
Right.
So let’s take this leaf.
As I said, this is about 5 grams here.
This is a 200 ml pot.
You can see.
Probably, once I shake it down we're talking about a third of the way up the pot, [or]
something like that, which is always a good rule of thumb - about a third.
Let's do the same here.
So what we're going to do is we're going to be brewIng with 80 degree water here, and
then we're going to be brewing with freshly boiled water, so around 90 [to] 95 degree
water.
Then we're going to see what the difference is.
I'm actually interested to do this.
I've never done this AB myself, so this is quite interesting.
Okay.
So how do you get 80 degree water.
Well, I've just got freshly boiled water next to me.
What you CAN do is you can stop the kettle when [it] is making a loud, rumbling noise,
and you see a single column of steam rising from the spout.
That's around 80 degrees.
What you can ALSO do is add a splash of COLD water to the kettle, around 10 percent of
the volume, [or] maybe a bit less - 5 to 10 percent.
Just add a good splash of cold water and you will get the temperature down.
So let's try that.
So here is freshly boiled water I'm going to put about 200 ml of water in here, and
I've got some cold water here and I'm just going to put a little splash of cold water
- about 20 ml or something like that.
I've got a thermometer here... which is not working.
Come on...
Here we go.
Right.
So a little splash of water - let's see what it has brought it up to.
Here you go.
You can see yourself.
So 82 degrees.
Something like that.
81.5, you can see how it's starting to drop.
Right.
So that's our temperature.
That's about right.
Let me just check [to see if] I'm in focus.
Okay.
I'm going to that one in here.
Now, normally I would rinse, but I am conscious of not making this video too long.
You don't really need to rinse with green tea.
It's very suitable for Oolongs and Puerhs, [but] you don't HAVE to rinse with green teas.
I just means that the first steep is going to be a bit longer.
So this has been about 7 seconds.
We're going to keep brewing.
We're going to do about a 20 second brew here.
I'm going to intentionally brew a little bit harder just to make sure that we realy taste
the difference.
Okay, so I'm conscious of making sure the brewing time is about the same, so I've got
a little stopwatch here.
Okay.
That's about 20 seconds and we're going to pour this out.
Subsequent infusions you're don't have to brew as long, because obviously the leaf has
started opening up.
Right.
I'm just going to put the kettle back on, and we're going to brew this one with BOILING
water.
Now, boiling water is a bit of a misnomer.
Straight from the kettle is never going to be boiling water.
It's going to be about 90 [to] 95 degrees, [or] something like that.
So there you go.
Put that on.
Start my stopwatch.
We want to make sure we get the same brewing time, so we can do a genuine, like-for-like
taste test, and hopefully we're going to notice a difference.
So, that's about there.
You can see brewing in glass is lovely because you can REALLY see the leaf start to react
to the water.
Right.
Here we go.
The tea goes in.
Right.
Now what I'm going to do is now pour into these smelling cups - these aroma cups - because
I really want to see if I can notice any difference in the actual aroma.
Take this, twist and turn.
Take this one, twist and turn.
Okay.
So let's see if we can notice any difference in the smell.
Wow!
Beautiful, lovely, light, fragrant, slightly flowery.
Let's see if I notice a difference on the boiling water.
Yup, DEFINITE different.
[It's] got more of a stewed note.
What I mean by stewed is like slightly older, like as if you imagine wood that has soaked
up water.
It's got that slightly woodier, wetter - if that makes any sense - aroma.
Okay.
Now I'm going to pull the camera around and I'm going to have a taste, and you're going
to see the difference in color of this tea Okay.
So here we are.
We've got the two cups of green tea that I've just brewed, and I hope you can see, through
the camera, the difference i color.
So this one here made with the boiling water [and] this one here is made with the 80 degree
water.
You can immediately see that this is a lot darker, has a slightly yellower tint to it
compared to this one one, which is very bright, and more of a kind of light lime green yellow,
rather than this slightly duller yellow.
You can also see here - if I can get the min focus.
Let me see if I can get these in focus.
Hold on one second...
Right.
So this one here is made with the 80 degree water, and this one here is with the boiling
water.
You can IMMEDIATELY see the difference that just 20 degrees, - or even LESS,because the
boiling water is never boiling, boiling.
So [with] just [a]10 to 15 degree difference you can see how much this one here has been
opened up.
The leaf has been opened up, and extracted much more quickly than THIS one where the
leaf is still opening up.
So that's a perfect visual example of how the temperature of the water affects the rate
at which the leaf will open and extract.
[This] means that [with] the lower temperature water one you have more control than the higher
temprature water one.
Okay.
I'm going to put the camera back and we're going to taste.
Right.
Tasting time.
You've already seen the color difference between the 80 degree water and the 95 degree water.
You've also seen how the leaf reacts differently [HOLDS UP BOTH TEAPOTS] according to the temperature
of the water.
But what's MOST important is taste.
So let's taste.
[HOLDS UP FIRST TEA INFUSION IN CUP] So this is the 80 degree.
[SIPS TEA] Soft, lively, very fragrant like morning dew over a meadow.
That beautiful, kind of, bright freshness.
It's also got some vegetal notes.
So, spinach.
Those very green spinach notes.
It also has a sight sweetness, like a kind of new potato with the skin still on - that
kind of sweetness.
And it's got a lovely balance between bright and a slight astringency.
So a nice little bit of grip so you get this nice refreshment.
It's a beautiful balance.
[Huang Shan Mao Feng] is a very light tea so this is a GREAT tea to do this test on
because it's very easy to throw the balance out.
Okay.
Wonderful.
Let's taste the 95 degree and see if it makes and difference.
Honestly, a WORLD of difference.
I'm actually SHOCKED at the level of difference that this has made.
Well, first of all, it's very dry, and it's got a lot more bitterness.
So it certainly has extracted more of those catechins.
And the taste just really DULL, it's woody, it's dusty.
It tastes almost like an OLD tea, like something that's about two years old, when it's actually
less than a year old.
It's remarkable the difference that just that10 to 15 degrees makes.
Yeah.
It tastes dead and dusty, and just not very good.
Whereas this one [SIPS TEA] [is] bright, lively, fragrant, juicy, wonderful; a COMPLETELY different
tea.
So you've got the SAME leaf, the same amount of leaf-to-water ratio.
You've got the same teaware, the same steeping time, and just that 10 to 15 degrees different
has made two completely different teas.
I would highly recommend that you try this at home.
I think you will agree with me that 80 degrees is the perfect starting point.
Listen, if you like your teas to be more tannic, drier and more bitter, then brew hot, by all
means.
This is just a guideline.
But I think 80 degrees is the perfect starting point.
I hope that answers your question to the viewer who left the comment.
If you made it to the end of this video then please give the video the thumbs-up.
Check out our playlists and just like the other viewer who wrote to us, if you have
any ideas for videos you'd like us to make then please let us know.
If you're ever in London, come and visit us in Camden to say "Hi" and taste our wares.
If you have any questions or comments then please fire them over.
We ALWAYS try and answer them.
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.