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"
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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.
