Tea is an intricate part of our daily lives and no matter what you drink or when you drink it. We believe that everyone should have that perfect cup of tea every single day. When it comes to making a proper cup of tea, it’s all in the details. Of course, you can just boil some water and grab a tea bag, but if you want to elevate the experience there are a few extra steps you can take.
Here are some of the best tips to upgrade your tea experience:
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Filtered Water
Use clean, purified water that won’t add any other taste to your tea. Always make your tea with filtered water since the better the water, the better the tea will taste.
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Water Temperature
The water temperature is a little tricky. Some tea require just boiled water while other teas are a little more sensitive to hot water (especially green tea) so you’ll need to make sure the water temperature is correct. For serious tea drinkers, they MUST use an electric kettle with a temperature setting and set the temperature for each type of tea they drink.
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Steep Time
Oversteeping tea leads to a bitter cup. This is the time to use the timer on your smartphone. Follow the steep time recommendations on the tea package, but roughly it is: black tea for 4-5 minutes, green and oolong for 3 minutes, and flower tea for 4 minutes.
Once the time is up, your tea is ready to drink. Don’t leave the tea leaves sitting in water since that just makes the tea way too strong and bitter. If you’re making a big pot of tea, use a teapot with an infuser to take out the leaves after the steep time. You can add the infuser back in the teapot if you want to steep the tea again in hot water.
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High Quality Loose Leaf Tea
Tea bags are not recommended since the tea is usually not as good as whole loose tea. Tea in tea bags are the leftover broken bits, or “tea dust,” collected after the tea has been processed. That doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? Good quality tea is a rolled whole tea leaf. As the tea steeps, it will unfurl in the hot water and you should be able to see the entire leaf. Loose tea is the best tea to steep such as Harper & Cordon's
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Warm The Teapot
Warming the teapot helps to brew the tea properly, keeping the water temperature hot. Pour some hot water into a teapot and swirl it around a bit, warming it up from the hot water. Throw out the water. Now your teapot is nice and warm, ready to brew tea.
The best place to start is to find the right tea you're in the mood for. If you're tired, a good cup of black tea could give you an energizing boost. If you're a bit full up from a meal you have just eaten, a nice cup of mint is said to aid digestion, and if you're quite awake but wanting to go to bed, a soothing cup of chamomile could help you relax into that deep peaceful sleep.
Whichever tea you're up to, you can find the best quality here at Harper & Cordon.
