Mistakes when you go to make a tea

Common mistakes when making a tea

Doesn’t it happen that sometimes you are lazy to ask for tea or infusions in a cafeteria because you know that they will put it with boiling water and without any kind of affection? What a hobby! With how healthy and rich it is.

In Spain we have very little respect for tea time and tea itself. This can not be.

If you are a tea lover, I will give you some advice so that at least at home, you do not make mistakes when preparing it and taste it as it deserves . A perfect way to combine with the famous coffee, because tea is a great substitute .

The beginnings …

In Japan the ritual or tea ceremony is celebrated, known internationally but in reality this tradition is of Chinese origin, what do you think?

It turns out that more than two thousand years ago they learned to use heat and pressing to extract flavors and colors from the leaves of the tea tree, which is why tea has been part of the oriental diet for more or less a thousand years, although it was exported to Europe and Russia in the 17th century.

Types of tea

There are countless kinds of tea colors, smells, and flavors and, luckily for your fans, plenty of specialty stores, but are we doing it right? How long do we have to boil it, does the kettle matter? With milk or without?

Let’s start at the beginning of time.

We are water, tea is also

Water is the base of all infusion. It is a KEY element.

To make a good tea or even a good coffee, for this reason the water should not be hard. Low in magnesium and calcium. If we are going to use it directly from the tap, be careful with the chlorine.

Temperature

• Heat the water without boiling it. What they do in coffee shops to put the tea with boiling water is first of all to make a bad infusion. Error.
• If the water boils we will have to wait a bit before adding the tea. It has to cool down a bit. But hey, this is a world, since each type of tea requires an appropriate temperature for it to infuse.
• If it is oolong, black or pu-erh, the 95º is suitable, but for a green or white tea less than 60º or between this temperature and 85º because its leaves are usually softer.
• Also, do not preheat the mug. Tea must be brewed in the proper container. To preheat, we simply heat water, introduce it, leave it until the container is warm, and then empty it.

A cup, a teapot

• We can infuse tea in a cup or teapot, but never make it into anything that gives off aromas of any kind.
• The ideal ones are porcelain or glass teapots, since in addition to the flavor you can see the intensity of the color of the tea.
• The enameled teapots are practical because they are not porous and that allows them not to be impregnated with flavors. The non-glazed ones are always best used with teas with a similar aroma and flavor.
• Iron teapots have become very fashionable but they are not the most appropriate since the temperature does not stay the same as in ceramic teapots.
• As for the classic balls … tea lovers do not use them as they hate that of imprisoning tea leaves. The bigger the container used, the more aroma and flavor our tea will have.

Tea flavored with patience

What is it to give a sip to the tea as soon as you put the bag? (if we talk about industrial teas).

Tea is trial, error and a lot of practice. We have to adapt it to our palate and taste. Everything will depend on the amount of tea leaves you add. The more leaves, the less time and vice versa. If they are broken or whole, it also influences: you rotate less time, whole longer.

As I was saying above, black tea or oolong need more time to infuse than the rest.

Another mistake is the quantities. Not much tea and few leaves or the opposite. An approximate formula could be two cups per 300 ml of water and place 4 or 5 grams of tea.

Neither sugar nor milk

It is a mistake both in the case of tea and coffee to add sugar or milk. In the case of coffee, milk is more accepted, but in tea in no case. This camouflages the aroma and flavor of the tea itself and is a shame.

Also milk sometimes cuts tea and makes you not digest it well. If you still get erre that err with this theme, it is best to add tea, made in a teapot, to warm milk.

Properties

The tea has tons of antioxidant properties, especially if you take it at the moment, of course. If you add lemon or lime (especially with black tea this type of citrus is great) you will make these antioxidants absorb more quickly by the body.

Caffeine: green tea vs black tea

As I was saying there are several studies that show the number of benefits that tea has for our health. The antioxidants, already mentioned, anti-inflammatories and vasodilators. In addition to being a diuretic and improving our concentration.

The caffeine in tea has effects on the human body because it stimulates the nervous system, but the fact that green tea has more theine than black tea is a myth.

It is not as easy as “black or white” (green or black in this case). It depends on the variety, the harvesting season etc.

Many black teas have more caffeine than green teas, but it’s because they come from asthmatic varieties and grow faster.

For this same reason it is also a myth that white teas have less caffeine than black tea.

It doesn’t matter if it’s tea time or not, when you do it properly, any time is good.