Tea Ceremonies at Home: Rituals, Tools, and Brewing Techniques
In a world where speed and efficiency are increasingly important, coffee is treated more and more like fuel. It is what and how and where we eat to turn us on and turn us out. But tea is something other. The brake pedal. The tea ceremony is a chance to take a moment to appreciate how a cup of tea is made and how it tastes when it is finished. It is a moment to preserve a tradition and a moment to create a new tradition.
An individual tea ritual can raise the simple act of drinking tea to the level of meditation. It demands a change of attitude from consumption to enjoyment. Here’s how to conduct a tea ceremony in your own home.
The Shift to Loose Leaf
The first way that you can take tea drinking to the next level is by leaving tea bags behind. The dust-grade fannings that are present in tea bags release their flavors immediately but are short on character and structure. Loose leaves need space to open up and expand. Here is where the visual component of tea drinking begins. You are witnessing the unrolling of an Oolong ball when it is placed in the hot fluid.
Necessary Items of the Contemporary Altar
A tea drinker does not necessarily require a museum-quality tea set to enjoy good tea, but some equipment alters the tea extraction dynamics markedly.
Gaiwan or Small Teapot: In the Eastern method of tea brewing, unlike the Western style, the teapot used is small, holding 100 to 150ml of water. In the Gaiwan, the tea leaves are in greater proportion to the amount of water used. In the Gaiwan, the tea can be smelled through the lid while it is poured. It should be poured in the glass or cup from the teapot.
The Pitcher: Also known as the fairness cup. The first cup will be weak and the last cup will be strong if you pour from the pot to the cup. The pouring of the tea first to a pitcher will ensure a mixture of everything, and every guest will get the same taste.
Small Cups: A large cup tends to encourage guzzling. A small, shallow cup leads to sipping. The tea cools to drinkable temperature fast in such cups, allowing you to taste the tea rather than scald your tongue with it.
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Water and Temperature Physics
Temperature control is the link between a good cup of tea, full of sweetness and complexity, and a bitter and astringent cup. Boiling water will destroy most tea.
Green and White Tea: These are more sensitive teas and need lower temperatures and lower water temperatures, ranging between 175°F and 180°F. Boiling water will produce instant tannins and bitterness because you will be burning the tea leaves.
Oolong and Black Teas: They can resist high temperatures, typically ranging from 195 to 212 Fahrenheit. The tea requires heat to open the tea leaves and allow their strong flavor to be extracted.
It is essential that you always use filtered water. This is because tea is mostly composed of water, which is approximately 99% of the composition of tea. If tap water tastes of chlorine or minerals, that is exactly how your tea will taste as well.
The Brewing Technique
The contemporary tea ceremony typically employs the Gongfu method of brewing, which requires a great deal of technique.
The Rinse: Hot water pours over the leaves and then pours right back out. This does not get drunk. This step removes the tea dust and awakens the leaves to infusing flavor.
Short Infusions: Rather than infusing one bag for five minutes, you infuse lots of leaves for very brief periods, typically 10-20 seconds only. The result is the extraction of flavors and aromas, but without the bitterness.
Multiple Steeps: Loose-leaf tea is not for single use. A difference in flavor occurs with every successive steep. Steeps Two and Three are often preferred because this is when the tea leaves are most expanded and are thus exposing their primary flavor.
The Daily Practice
Creating this ritual is part of taking care of yourself. It sets aside a time and a place to put away the screens and just be present for the water, the leaf, and the pour. Whether entertaining for others or alone, the tea ceremony is a reminder that sometimes the journey is just as crucial as the destination. It brings you back to the present, one cup at a time.
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