How Do You Brew Tea

Why Should You Cold Brew Tea

This method is incredibly simple. You may even find it easier than steeping your tea in hot water. This is because with cold water you dont run the risk of over steeping.

In fact, because of it being more forgiving you dont have to worry too much about the amount of tea leaves or how long you steep the tea. For example, many people tell me theyre not a fan of green teas and usually it is because the water temperature is too hot and/or the leaves are steeping for too long. This results in a very, very bitter drink.

If thats the case for you too, then cold steeping delicate teas like a green tea would be an excellent way to give it another try.

Strainer Or Infuser What Is The Difference

Strainers and infusers are two different tea utensils, although you may use both for either steeping or straining. The most common infuser is a tea ball, infusion spoon or tea basket. The most popular strainers are strainer with handles and regular kitchen strainers. Almost every type of strainer can be used as an infuser, and some infusers may be used as strainers. But how to make tea if you dont have either, or if your tea strainer is too small for tea to expand.

What Is Bubble Tea

Bubble tea, also known as boba tea, is a Taiwanese tea drink flavored with milk or fruit with marble-sized tapioca balls at the bottom. It can be made with all sorts of teafrom plain black, jasmine or oolong tea to fruity herbal tea like strawberry, melon or mango. Its most known for its iconic bubbles that are soft, chewy and a little sweet. People enjoy other unexpected add-ins like grass jelly or cheese foam .

Bubble tea has all the health benefits of drinking tea, too.

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Make Sure The Water Temperature Is Right

Once your kettle is boiled with fresh water you need to leave it for a few minutes to cool down.Some of you may read this and think ‘but I love my tea piping hot?’ Leaving it for a few minutes will still produce a very hot cup of tea and will give you better results.Our top tip is that you should never pour boiling water over a tea bag or loose tea. The reason for this is because the boiling water will burn the tea, it scalds it and therefore, the tea doesn’t release all of its maximum flavours.Tea is a very delicate plant and needs to be cared for in order to receive the full benefits. So once your water has rested for about 2-3 minutes it’s ready to be poured onto your tea.

Stick To The Brewing Instructions

Now you have poured your water onto your tea you need to let it brew for the recommended time.Our group of professional tea tasters have travelled the world finding and tasting every tea you could possibly image and youll find their recommendation for the perfect time to brew any blend on the box or pouch.Obviously if you like your tea stronger or weaker that is a personal taste. However, the optimal brewing time will produce a beautiful, smooth cup that will leave you wanting more.

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Delicious Iced Tea Add

Honey Instead of grainy sugar, choose a smooth and natural sweetener like honey

Simple Syrup If you dont want the sugar to sink at the bottom of the glass, use simple syrup instead

Lemon Squeezing some lemon juice over or adding fresh lemon slices can add a refreshing kick to your tea

Lemonade Also known as half-and-half or Arnold Palmer, lemonade and iced tea match perfectly

Berries A colorful and tasty fruity taste boost

Herbs Want to up the freshness? Just add a few mint leaves, some lavender, or rosemary sprigs to your tea

Frozen Fruit Extra chilly and extra fruity, frozen chunks of fruit such as mango, melon, pineapple, peaches can really transform the taste

Extracts Vanilla is not the only extract for tea. You can also choose rum, almond, coconut, or even a fruity flavor

Coconut Milk Nutty, creamy, and naturally sweet, coconut milk is an excellent addition to any kind of tea

Spirits Yup! Add some booze to the mix and make it a real party, people. Gin, rum, and bourbon are some great boozy add-ons

Making Tea In A French Press

You may be familiar with a French press for brewing coffee, but you may not realize that this device can also be used to make tea. One advantage of using a French press to make tea is that you can brew several cups at once. Another advantage of this tool is that you can steep and serve in the same vessel. One of the drawbacks, however, is that you run the risk of over-steeping your tea because the leaves are not removed after brewing, but simply sit at the bottom of the press.

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Select A Tea And Put It In A Glass Jar

The first step to make cold brew iced tea is to select a tea and put it in a jar with water.

Loose tea is the preferred choice since its large leaves produce the most flavor as they unfurl in the water. However, you can also cold brew tea sachets which contain fairly big pieces of tea or tea bags.

Tea bags are considered the lowest quality of the bunch, though you still can cold brew them.

Regarding type of tea, anything goesblack, green, white, herbal, oolong and so on.

And if youre like me and enjoy a perfectly made cup of hot black tea, guess what? With cold brew you dont have to worry about watching a tea timer or excessive bitterness.

Suggested amount of tea to use per cup of water:

The amount of tea you use to make cold brew iced tea depends on the way the tea is packaged and how concentrated you want the tea to be.

Ready to Drink Iced Tea: For ready to drink tea, the basic formula is to use about 1.5 times the amount of tea per cup of water than you normally would. For instance, if the tea package calls for 1 teaspoon of tea per 8 ounces of water for hot brew, then use 1.5 teaspoons for cold brew.

Cold Brew Tea Concentrate:

Tea concentrate is just stronger tea, usually double strength.

With it you can create some really fun and flavorful drinks. All you have to do is combine tea concentrate with another drink using a 1 to 1 ratio.

Milk In First Or Last

This has long been a controversial topic. Do you put the milk in first? Or splash it in after the tea has steeped?This comes down to personal choice, of course, but the milk-in-first approach refers to the early days of tea-drinking. Lower quality china would sometimes crack when the hot water was poured onto the tea leaves. Adding the milk first, resolved the issue. All modern day teaware is made to cope with boiling water which means it is no longer necessary to add the milk first.When using tea bags, let the tea fully infuse the water first before adding your milk. On the other hand if youre using loose leaf tea, the tea will already have brewed in the pot and so adding a dash of milk to your tea cup first wont impact the infusion and steeping time.Milk goes well with the stronger black teas but we would suggest avoid adding it to green, herbal and fruit teas!

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Iced Tea Brewing Guide

Browse Our Tea Selections:

How To Make Tea 5 Ways

Sure, it seems simple: Add water. Steep. Sip. But the little details can make a big difference as you master how to make tea. That’s because with such few ingredients, how you select them and treat them can determine whether your cup is fit for a queen or something that you’ll struggle to finish.

First, we’ll cover the basics of tea, then we’ll explain how to make tea every which way. Your tea parties are just a few tips away from a big level-up.

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Questions You May Have

Why is my tea bitter?

Tannins are compounds in tea. When tea leaves steep for too long or in water thats too hot, it releases a lot of tannins, making your tea bitter. Thats why you shouldnt steep your tea for too long or in water thats too hot.

Why is green tea so bitter?

Green tea is notorious for being super fickle. You shouldnt steep for too long and most definitely dont need boiling hot water. If youve had green tea thats too bitter to drink, it wasnt made properly. See my green tea guide.

Why is my tea flavorless?

Again, tannins. If you didnt steep your tea long enough or used water thats too cool, youll get a less than ideal cup of tea.

Why cant I use tap water to make tea?

Youll get a cleaner and more consistent tasting cup of tea when you use better quality water.

Can I use the microwave to make tea?

I would advise against using the microwave to make tea. When you use an electric kettle or heat water on the stovetop, you get water thats uniformly hot. In the microwave, you would get hot and cold spots which isnt ideal for steeping tea. Also, its incredibly difficult to figure out the water temperature when you use the microwave.

Which tea should I start with if I want to get into tea?

I recommend starting with oolong tea since its pretty forgiving. See my oolong tea guide.

How To Brew Loose Leaf Tea

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All you really need to prepare loose leaf tea is hot water, the leaves themselves, and a tea strainer. However, each type of tea requires slightly different steeping techniques. For the best cup, follow the recommended measurements, water temperature, and steeping time outlined on the package of tea. Experiment with different quantities of tea or steeping durations. Finally, add in your favorite sweetener or milk for a soothing cup of tea that really hits the spot.

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How To Make Cold Brew Iced Tea

The method itself is incredibly simple. Just combine loose-leaf tea or whole tea bags and water in a pitcher and let the tea infuse the water for 6 to 12 hours in the refrigerator . Strain, and you have cold-brew tea that will taste great for days!

Bon Appetit suggested that they have best results with loose-leaf tea, so I used loose-leaf here, but Ive since been making lazy cold-brew tea by soaking whole bags in water, which tastes almost as good and is much easier to make.

Another option? Steep your loose-leaf tea in a clean French pressjust press down the filter to remove those loose tea leaves and pour!

Use The Fork As A Strainer

If you dont have a cheesecloth or a flour sieve, and dont want to make too much mess in your kitchen, you can use a regular fork to strain the tea leaves too. Steep the leaves in a mug or a small saucepan first. Then use another mug and slowly pour the tea from the first mug/saucepan into the second, while holding the tea leaves with a fork. This will work only with big unbroken leaves, such as Pai Mu Tan or Pettiagala Extra Long Leaf Orange Pekoe.

All of these methods will work if you dont have necessary tea equipment at home. They will allow you to try loose leaf tea without investing into teaware. However, if you really want to find relaxation and beauty in drinking tea, nothing can beat a beautiful tea set.

To learn about the recommended time for steeping different tea types and how to measure tea leaves, read how to measure loose leaf tea, and how to brew white tea, green tea, oolong tea, black tea and herbal tea.

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How Do You Make Loose Leaf Tea In A Kettle

Again, ideally you dont. Instead of using a kettle to prepare tea, use a teapot.

Those new to tea drinking sometimes use the terms tea kettle and tea pot interchangeably, but these are two very different tools. The kettle should only be used to boil the water to the perfect temperature. If you have a teapot, this is what you use to actually make the tea.

You place an infuser in the teapot, or purchase a teapot with a built-in infuser. The tea steeps in the teapot for the appropriate amount of time, ranging from one to five minutes, depending on the type of tea youre making.

You dont necessarily need a strainer, but its better to use one. You dont want to just pour loose leaf tea in a kettle unless you enjoy drinking cloudy tea that contains leaves and tea dust.

Best Green Tea Brewing Temperature

The best temperature for brewing green tea is usually around 158 °F and 176 °F. However, some teas are more delicate than the others. Boiling water will ruin the flavor completely. Below is a list of the most common types and recommended brewing temperatures. Always adjust the parameters slightly if the tea you are drinking is too weak or too strong for your taste.

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Wait But What Are True Teas

Black, green, white, and oolong are considered true teas. They all come from the same source: the Camellia sinensis plant.

The type of tea is a result of how the plant is processed specifically, how heavily the leaves are oxidized. Oxidation is a process of chemical reactions that bring out flavor and brown the leaves.

Black tea, for example, is made from fully oxidized tea leaves, which is why it has a pronounced, deep flavor. Other teas such as green, white, or oolong are semi-oxidized or not oxidized at all, resulting in milder flavors.

Within these four general tea types, there are dozens of more specific varieties each with their own unique flavor profile. For example, Ceylon is a type of black tea grown in Sri Lanka and Sencha is a type of green tea from Japan. For more info of tea varieties, read our article on types of tea.

How To Store Tea Bags And Leaves Properly

Whether you prefer loose leaf tea or tea bags, using an airtight container or tea caddy helps to keep your tea dry, fresh and also stops any strongly scented teas from passing their flavour onto more delicate varieties in your cupboard.If you are using loose tea leaves instead of a teabag, make sure to use a good quality strainer. We recommend an open top strainer you place into the cup. This way the tea leaves have a lot of freedom to move around in the cup, if you use a small strainer ball the tea doesn’t have a lot of room to infuse.Another a good tip for loose tea is, don’t use so much. Many people pack their strainers full because they feel that the more tea they have, the more intense the flavour will be. As we said, that is not the case tea needs movement and freedom and even a pinch of loose tea will give you that fantastic flavour you deserve.

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Recipe #: Chaga Iced Tea

Okay, this method takes the longest to make, which is understandable due to the cooling, but once you try Chaga this way, it will become your go-to summer refreshment. And if youre already tired of your peach or lemon iced tea, then Chaga is the perfect way to spice up your hot afternoons.

Common Questions About Making Tea

What does brew mean when making tea?

Brew is the term that is used when you make tea. Sometimes it is confused with the term steep. Steeping your tea is the term used for how long you let your tea leaves sit in the hot water. But, brew is the term that applies to the whole process of making tea from start to finish.

Do you put tea bags in boiling water?

If you pour boiling water into your cup with the tea bag, then you run the risk of burning the tea leaves. Instead, get the water almost to the boiling point and after youve turned off the heat, let it sit for a minute before pouring into your cup. That way the tea leaves will release the full flavor instead being burned and releasing a bitter taste.

How do you steep a tea bag?

Steeping is simply referring to letting the tea bag sit in the hot water for a period of time, which is determined on what type of tea you are drinking.

How long do tea bags need to steep?

It completely depends on the type of tea that you are using. For some teas, like green tea, they become very bitter if you let them steep for too long. Other teas, like black tea, need a little more time to steep so that the tea leaves have enough time to release the full flavor.

Why shouldnt you squeeze the tea bag?

Whats the best temperature to brew tea?

Does tea get stronger the longer it steeps?

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