Five Common Mistakes made by Tea Novice

At Green Ginkgo Tea, we often encounter customers who tell us why the tea brewed here tastes so different than the one brewed at home. For example, why the sencha you brew here is so soft and smooth, with different levels of aroma, but it is very bitter when you brew it yourself at home.

There is no secret to making tea, but there are several factors that can affect the taste of tea: water, temperature, tea leaves, teaware, and the state of mind of making the tea.

Water

水質和水溫影響茶的質素 Water quality and temperature affect tea taste

The first thing I want to talk about is the water for brewing tea: brewing bad tea with good water will make the tea better; brewing good tea with bad water will turn into bad tea. It can be seen that water is the key to brewing good tea. If our general household water is not equipped with a filter, it may be mixed with the smell of chlorine gas and other metal impurities. It may be ok to brew strong-flavored tea, but if it is used to brew green tea or tea with a lighter taste such as white tea, the taste of the tea will be masked by metal or chlorine gas, and the true taste of the tea can not be tasted at all. Therefore, it is ideal to use filtered water or bottled mineral water to make the tea. If you make tea in the office, you should not have this problem, because most offices already have filters installed.

Temperature

The second is the temperature of brewing tea. I found that many people do not know that the temperature of brewing tea is also a little different. Generally speaking, it is divided into 50 to 60 degrees, 70 to 80 degrees, and 90 to 100 degrees. Green tea and white tea with a lower degree of fermentation, we will brew at a lower temperature, such as Japanese sencha, gyokuro, etc. If we brew tea with water at 90 to 100 degrees, the tea taste will become very bitter and completely overwhelm the tea The fresh and refreshing taste; on the contrary, if we brew with water of 70 to 80 degrees, the tea soup will become layered and smooth. Brewing oolong tea, green tea, dark tea or black tea can be brewed with boiling water of 90 to 100 degrees.

Tea

The third tea, when brewing, we need to take a look at the state of the tea: see whether the shape of the tea is cord-shaped, powder-like, or half-powder and half-leaf, or spherical. Different forms have different requirements for the time for the tea soup to taste, and we can't read it all the time. For example, if the sencha is completely powdered, we have to shorten the time, because the taste will be very fast, and the tea will become very rich and bitter after a long time.

日本常滑燒急須 Japanese Ceramics Kyushu Teapot

Teaware

The fourth is the teaware. If you want to brew good-tasting tea, but only use a water cup (even without a lid), the brewed tea will probably not taste good. Because there is no water, the temperature will dissipate quickly, and there will be no effect of brewing and baking, and the tea flavor will not be developed well; when you try to use the brewing time to compensate for the lack of tea flavor, the bitterness of the tea will exude too much. So the easiest way is to prepare a bowl or rush to brew tea, and most of the tea can already be brewed.

The Mentality of Making Tea

The fifth is the mentality of making tea. Tea making can be a concept that purely satisfies basic drinking, or it can be a process of adjusting one’s mentality and relaxing one’s mood. When making tea, no matter how irritable you are or how busy you are at work, you should put it down first and make good use of the tea time to adjust your mood, just focus on the action of making tea in front of you. No distractions, focus on brewing tea, and the brewed tea will taste better. You can try to make tea with a calmer mind or a more scattered mind, and you will find that the taste of the tea will really be different.

I hope you can brew good-tasting tea after rea

ding these five common mistakes made by new tea brewers!