Top Ten Ways to Ruin Your Tea

Yes Virginia, there are numerous ways to ruin your tea. Tea is a sensitive substance, and mishandling it will diminish its quality and your enjoyment of it.

1. Don’t Read The Label

Don’t automatically assume that you know how to prepare a tea. While there is always room for experimentation, and there are several common-sense rules about tea prep (i.e. use cooler water for green and white tea, boiling for black), tea merchants have worked with their tea and know what will deliver the most consistent results.

Particularly important is finding out how much water should be used in the preparation of a tea. I’ve seen tea package instructions that require anywhere from 6 ounces to a full liter of water, so be careful: You don’t want to create a brew that is too weak, too strong, bitter, or just plain disgusting.

Similarly, if you are using a tea bag, check to see what the manufacturer suggests as the appropriate amount of water to use in your mug/cup. Many mugs/cups are much larger than 8 ounces, for example, so more than one tea bag may be appropriate.

Also, check out the measurement for the tea itself: Normally the measurement is by the teaspoon, but I have seen different measurements used in tea-making instructions.

2. Use Stale, Warm, or Distilled Water to Make Your Tea

The water you use for your tea  should be fresh, cold, spring or filtered tap water. Distilled water tastes flat, and water that is stale or warm also lacks the oxygen necessary to make your tea shine.  Yes, I know it is tempting to run hot water into your kettle to save time, but the results won’t be as good. (And never, EVER use the microwave to heat your tea water. )

Tip: Electric kettles are not expensive, and will heat your water much more quickly than a stovetop kettle.

3. Don’t Store Your Tea Properly

Tea is sensitive to heat, cold, air and moisture. It also absorbs odors. Each of your teas (including tea in teabags) should be stored in a separate, water-and-airtight container.

In his comments on my tea tin blog post, Nigel from Nbtea.com notes that a good tea container should be able to keep its contents dry even if it has been submerged in water overnight.

4. Don’t Watch Your Mouth

Don’t drink tea right after brushing your teeth or chewing gum. Heavy perfume can also affect your ability to appreciate the delicate tea flavors and aromas. Lip stick/lip gloss, particularly of the “lip plumping” variety (which often includes strong-smelling menthol)  is also a no-no.

Incidentally, gum disease and cavities can also negatively affect your palate, so if you haven’t been to the dentist in awhile, make an appointment for a cleaning and examination.

5. Use a Tea Ball/Egg

We drink loose leaf tea because we appreciate  the flavor that a larger/whole leaf infuses into our tea. But if the leaf can’t unfurl and move around properly, much of that flavor is going to be lost.  Tea balls/tea eggs don’t give the leaf enough room.  Either get a teapot with a large infusing basket, infuse tea in a teapot and decant using a strainer, or use a tea maker such as an ingenuiTEA.

6. Don’t Clean Your Teapots and Kettles Regularly

Even the purist, cleanest water is going to taste funky if it is being heated in a lime-scaled kettle or infused with tea in a pot that is contaminated with residue from previous tea steepings.

7. Don’t Use a Thermometer

Too-hot water will scorch green, white, and green oolong teas. A cooking thermometer will let you know when your water is at the right temperature for tea.

8. Steep Your Tea Too Long

If you want stronger tea, use more tea. Steeping too long can release bitter notes.

If you are a forgetful sort, use a noisy timer to remind you when your tea has infused.

9. Don’t Use a Scale or Measuring Spoon

Even the best quality tea can be ruined by using too much or too little. Measuring spoons are usually fine for black teas, but because of their larger leaf size, green, white, and green oolong teas are often best measured by using a small scale.

10. Reuse Paper Tea Bags

The tea in paper tea bags is typically composed of “dust and fannings”: Tiny particles of tea that infuse quickly. When they’ve been used once, their flavor has been spent, so use a fresh tea bag instead.

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Tagged as: tea, tea drinking, tea pot, water temperature