How to make a delicious green tea cup

Tea leaves are placed in a teapot, hot water is added to the tea leaves and keep the tea in hot water for a certain amount of time. It sounds easy to make a tea cup, but in fact, it is not. The time the tea left with hot tea, the quality of water, the temperature and the experience of the tea maker in making tea process are the main things impact to the tea quality. According to my 5-6 years experiences, i find that there are some main point in making tea process which maybe to be useful.

1. Important Points for Preparing making Green Tea

 There is a experience from my ancestor who also loved enjoy the tea very much. It said that the water and the temperature are most important things. The next one is tea quality. The teapot and making tea experience also are very important

Choosing the right water

Water can impact very much to Tea quality. Un-suitable water makes the smell and taste of Tea fewer. Generally, there are 3 sort of water which are suitable to making tea. 

• The best type of water to use in making green tea is high mountain stream water. The stream flow should be slow and clean. 
• The second type is river water but it should not be the water near the riverside, the water got from middle/center is better and the river also should be far from the city, from the factory.
• The last one is the water in the laterite well (ground water). The laterite work like a filter to make water purer. In Vietnam, you can find laterite in some temples or pagodas on the mountain

As Mr. Thạch Thư Xá said, today, it's difficult to find natural water resources without any pollutant. They use distilled water or filtration water with neutral pH and 50 – 150 ppm total dissolved solids ( TDS) or 1 to 3 grains hardness . It will provide the best results for green tea.

Choosing the Water temperature

Water temperature plays an very important part in making. Different types of tea require different water temperatures. This is because different components of tea dissolve at different temperatures. To the green tea a temperature of around 85 degrees C is recommended, while for black tea, boiling water or water close to 100 degrees C should be used. 

In order to get 85 degrees C, you should boil the water then take your time (about 2 minutes) to wait the water temperature slow down. Or you can pour the boiled water to a Tea Serving Pitcher (this cup is usually bigger four time than a normal tea cup) and wait for 30 seconds ( Please refer to the Figure 3 as below)

Making tea equipments/necessary items

      (Figure 1: Tea equipments)

Generally, there are necessary items below in making tea process

• Teapot: teapot can be made from Clay or ceramic materials. The teapot size is calculated by the amount of water it can contain inside
• Boiling Water Teapot: this tool is used to contain the water inside for boiling. The gas heater from bottom will heat the water inside to boiling temperature.
• Tea Serving Pitcher: this tool is used to reduce the temperature of water form boiling temperate to 85 degrees C which is suitable to make green tea
• Taste tea cup: the cup is used to drink/enjoy tea
• Tea towel: this tool is used to clean other items
• Tea table/tray: trap the wasted tea/water

2. Making tea process.

Note: these pictures/figures below are taken from my tea friend's website: thuongtra.org

Step 1: Insert a mount of green tea leaves in the teapot. The weight of tea leaves is very important. It also impact to the smell and the taste of tea party. See the Figure 2.

(Figure 2: Insert tea to the teapot)

 Step 2: Pour the hot water to the pitcher to reduce the match temperature. See the Figure 3.

(Figure 3: Pour hot water 85 degrees C to the Tea Serving Pitcher)

Step 3: Pour the water from pitcher to teapot then wait for 10 seconds for dry green tea leaves can open the leaves. See the Figure 4.

(Figure 4: Pour the water from Tea Serving Pitcher to the teapot)  

Step 4: Pour the tea from teapot to the pitcher. The pitcher make the smell and the taste of tea to all tea cup to be the same. This point is important thing. See the Figure 5.

(Figure 5: Pour the tea from Teapot to the Pitcher then pour to small tea cup) 

 

Step 5: Pour the tea from pitcher to the tea cup then enjoy it. See the Figure 6.

  (Figure 6: Pour the tea from Pitcher to tea cup) 

The Secret of process : Do the same from Step 2 to Step 5 to next turn of making tea. In general, green tea can be made by 5-6 turn. You should increase the keeping time of tea in teaport (step 3 to step 4) by 45 seconds in each turn. This certain amount of time is the key to keep the tea cup has the same smell and taste in each turn.

Summary

The process i described above is my personal experiences. Please concern about try this and have a delicious tea cup

Đông Lai Tea House.

23 Dec 2014.

LinhAndTea