Hey guys, what's up? it's Alex, so it's actually, um,
8:30 in the morning. I am not in my city. I'm in London in the UK.
For a specific reason because this afternoon, I've got a conference during which I'm going to explain my journey
but until then I've got some free time so I thought
Wouldn't it be the perfect place to
do an episode I've been willing to do for so long? My goal today
Is just to guide you through this discovery I made in the past. What does it feel to taste real tea?
I hope you understand the basics also the different types of tea, so I say we start with the common stuff:
a tea bag
sugar
and milk.
For this experience I'm going to use PG tips. Which is a very common key here in the uk and
Brew for 1-2 minutes, as it's written on the package then remove the teabag. Always use fresh milk. [haha]
Shit, the color is not bad. It doesn't shout tea to me
It's sweet. It's soft. It is slightly fatty there is a light bitterness behind this. Do not get me wrong
It's not bad, but it's not good either so at the end of the you're not left with
Something very you know persistent in the mouth. So now I say we move on in this you know tea eye-opening Journey I
Don't know about you guys, but I've always had this thing with tea that I feel like tea is
British in some way, but the more and more I learn about tea and the less and less I feel so I feel now like
Way more
Asian than western so we are going to take the bus to go and see my friend the tea specialist
And I think it would benefit from that time just to share with you some knowledge
I learned the hard way about tea. First thing you need to know about tea
Is that all the tea on the planet comes from one plant and one plant only. The specie is called
Camellia
sinensis
[so] long story short the mic was off the whole duration of the bus journey how lovely is that anyway
I'm going to dub this part, so [that] plant Camellia, Sinensis
originally comes from
Southeast Asia
Is a subtropical region, but it's now available
Everywhere on the planet. It's worth mentioning that it's the second most
consumed beverage on the planet just
after water a
proper brew is made by infusing the leaves
Or any part of that
tea plant into hot water usually boiling water, but it isn't have to be always boiling
Yes
[alright] people I just arrived at my friend's place
So I see we're going to keep learning new things about tea, and hopefully drink some decent tea now
Oh, you good. How are you?
Alex.
Hey Don. How are you nice [to] see you?
[see] you man such a nice place, [really]. Oh, thank you. Let me show you around
*French Amazement*
and now my studio organization looks rubbish [ah]
Don, thanks for having me.
Don: Pleasure, Alex, pleasure.
Can you tell a bit - the viewers about what you do
I'm a tea lover, first and foremost a tea lover. So that's my that's my whole remitted life
And we have this shop here
In London Mayleaf tea house where we just have loads and loads of different types of tea. We've got a Youtube channel
That you can learn everything and anything you need to know about tea.
Alex: Did you just plug your Youtube channel?
Don: Yeah, of course. You've got to take every opportunity
Alex: You still need to tell now
The different types of tea so can you help me doing this around the shop?
Don: sure [ok] let's start here
Don: You will know about white tea? Alex: Yeah absolutely
[ok] so white tea is basically tea
Which has been picked and then dried very very simple.
But it needs to be done right with anything that's simple as you know, with cooking if it's not done spot-on
It's not going to be good. So the green tea green tea is basically what they're doing
Is they're picking very young leaves buds and young leaves and then they heating the leaf up very quickly
Okay Roger that --Right so you heat the leaf up to deactivate enzymes in the leaf- stops it from oxidizing
Next up is probably one of the most rarities is yellow tea. --Yellow tea?--Yellow tea.
They produce in an exact same way as green tea, but then after the heating phase they cover it up
They wrap it in a nice blanket. They steam it, they let- wrap it up and it basically
Exists in a kind of humid environment. --You see that's the passion we're looking for;
this right here.-- I can't help myself, right?
Next one --Next one is Oolong tea.--Oolong tea, I love oolong tea. --Many people have a
passionate love affair with oolong tea and the reason for that is because the palette of flavors for oolong tea is so wide
Because if you imagine green tea is unoxidized tea right? Because it's been heated to deactivate the enzyme
Black tea is fully oxidized tea so about 80 to 90 percent above
You've got this window from about 10 percent to 90 percent that's oolong tea. Come around here
Next and probably the most widely known is black tea.--Black tea. So I had black tea -spoiler alert-this morning
I had a tea bag of PG tips as I told you I'm guessing this is not exactly the same stuff
It's not exactly the same stuff. We're not gonna-- This might be very offending just to say that.--No. no, hey
I'm british. I was brought up here so
I've been brought up on the tea bag tea so like you know I've drunk a lot of that
But this is like a whole other world. It's just a different- It's just a completely different drink really so black tea is
Fully oxidized tea which means that they pick it, they allow it
They roll it either by hand or with small machines
So they roll it they crush the leaf, they get all the essential oils to the surface, leave it in the air to oxidize and it
becomes black, right? and then they heat it, dry it and sometimes roast it
So I have a this question about black tea . So is this really more powerful than [than] green tea?
and what does powerful mean anyway?
Is it stronger in terms of taste or is it stronger in terms of caffeine for example?
It's not stronger in terms of caffeine. It's a very common misconception that the darker and stronger
the tea, the higher the caffeine that's not true. --Okay
The caffeine content depends on a whole load of things, but specifically which part of the plant was picked
--Mmm, that's the bud thing? --buds, young leaves-very, very important okay?-- okay, Cool
So the next tea is
post-fermented tea
Right, now now we're entering a whole new world. Okay. This is a really interesting world and it
Needs a whole episode basically, but post-fermented tea is basically means you're picking the tea
And you're processing it similar to a green tea right, [but] your sun drying it so it doesn't
Deactivate the enzymes completely so they're kind of slow and then you'd leave it for years
And that's it. Those are your different types of tea. --Can we do a proper
You know tasting of a loose-leaf tea because the the one I had this morning
Nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing to be proud either.--Let's try a black tea
Done loose leaf style, okay?--Ok Let's do it. Yeah
I could not be more ready.--So we're gonna to do that. So we've got some black tea here. --This is black tea?
This is black. --This can't be black tea, man. --This is black tea.--This is not black tea.
Yeah, I'm lying to you Alex, it's not.
Okay, so that's the black tea done. Pretty simple, it may look a little bit, uh, artistic
but it's actually really, really simple.-- Can I see something?-- yeah, sure.-- It looks rather light to me
Yeah, okay, so that is that's because this black tea is made with buds, okay?
So it's just -you saw- it's just fine buds. You can see them here. Taste this tea
There we go. -- Slightly different to your PG tipps.
The first thing that comes to my mind, It's not bitter --Right-- Absolutely not bitter
It's not sweet, but it's soft --Soft exactly!--It's subtle.
Yeah, hay, right, so it's got that dry grass kind of taste; Malt, so it's got a kind of slightly
Toffee notes- little bit malty notes--Toasted-- yeah, yes
That's one of the key things about tea appreciation is actually
how much the tea remains in your mouth afterwards- the flavor. Because that's one of the key markers for high quality tea
It's also about the texture
It's all about it's all about how smooth and how soft it is yeah, so one of the things you should
You should focus on is try to forget taste and just focus on texture-- On texture
Just focus on texture--It would be my first texture feasting-- yeah texture tasting
Just notice how it coats your mouth
I feel like it's a bit more heavy than water
yeah, so it's thicker, its got a bit more viscosity to it just it's just a bit more lubricated bit more kind of uh
Covering your mouth
Notice how the second infusion just looks a bit richer
--How can that be?--So you'll notice now-- You mean it's going in terms of flavor?-- In terms of everything okay?
This is why you should never if you purchased, and you spend your hard-earned money on loose leaf tea
You should never throw it away after wanted to use and always
[refuse] the leaf I feel like there is something to experience there. There's something to learn there is something to taste there
Nobody can deny that this has some flavor in it I can taste
Things you may I take a look at the the tea bags because I've got a key back in my [admire] backpack
Yeah, I can bring it and we can open it, and you can tell me what you what you see [in] it
[yeah], not only associations. You will tell me about the future my future
It's a classic teabag
grind so what they've done is they pick the leaves definitely machine clicks and then machine ground the tea and
It's designed as I said for convenience so it's designs. It's been ground down into the powder
[so] that they can use the minimal amount of leaf for the maximum amount of strength in the shortest amount of time
I did this because the peridot has the maximum sulfates up any
[solids] yeah, so so it goes [just] so much better. [yeah] serious water hits it. It's going to extract those elements
Which is why it's more suited to combining with milk all right. Thank you very much don for everything. I think it's opening
You know slightly opening the door of a new world yeah, absolutely
The whole Barber together you've got well it really generates a human with a pleasure to seamlessly. We catch up next time absolutely absolutely
Absolutely wisdom is how [bright] guys it's been an absolute pleasure to taste that and also a really interesting
Journey [for] me to share that with you if you like this video then please leave the like thumbs up and share that over all
Your social media. You know, how work where it's like butter, or brew it like see if you want to
I'm not sure. I'm going to turn this into a series, but if you want me to do
Please leave a comment down below and also leave whatever you want to learn maybe how to brew tea
maybe more in depth about the different types of tea
Unless people please subscribe because I make new videos [every] week and as you can see it's not always certain my videos
It's not always about how to make wine or how to make bread it's also about opening about broadening our horizons
I hope you enjoy that catch you next time [bye]. Bye!