Tuesday, 29 July 2008
by Dev Menon
“Tea has infinite quality” – that is the mantra!
In “Tea – Nuances of Taste,” an article I wrote a couple years ago, I described the many ways that tea quality can be affected during the manufacturing processes. Tea has myriad nuances, with every break, or lot, having a potentially unique taste. And the subtleties don’t end there!
Variations in the quality of water used to brew tea will result in the same tea throwing a cup of different taste and other characteristics. When I first joined the tea trade (at Lipton in 1960), my training commenced at a subsidiary selling bulk teas to “the Continent,” i.e., the rest of Europe, which the British, at that time, considered a different continent to the U.K. We used to import gallon jars of water from different locations and cup the same teas in each of these, to assess to which market a particular tea should be offered. A sister company dealing with the U.K. market, did the same, bringing in water from various parts of England, Scotland and Wales. I spent many years in Calcutta, now Kolkatha, where, until the late ’80s, tea companies were focused around Dalhousie Square. It was interesting that teas which liquored “fair color, bright” in water east of Dalhousie would come out “colory, strong, somewhat dark” to the west!
Variations in steeping time obviously result in considerable differences in cup. In this case, the governing factor is the requirement of the consumer. A review of tea packs of yesteryear, especially those packaged in the U.K., will show that brewing times of 4 to 6 minutes were the norm. It must be remembered that the largest market segment was the British factory worker; in Manchester, for example, the test of a good cup of tea was that a teaspoon should stand upright in the center!
Another factor is that these heaviest of tea consumers drank their tea “with cream and sugar.” Even today, in Britain and in India (which has an annual domestic consumption of about 1.32 billion pounds of tea), tea is mostly drunk with milk and sugar.
In my view, steeping tea for anything over two minutes maximum results in perceptible tannin taste. In fact, I prefer not to brew my tea for more than one minute, whether black or green. If you want a stronger cup of tea, use more leaf, or an extra teabag!
I remember, when in San Francisco for the 1996 Winter Fancy Food Show, visiting the American Tea Master’s Association “for a 20 minute chat” and spending two hours, tasting so many different exotic teas. Often the same tea had steeping times starting at 20 to 30 seconds, then increasing to perhaps one to one and a half minutes. It was a truly amazing experience.
This is, of course, a rule of thumb. Tea lovers must assess for themselves the exact steeping time that suits them best for each individual tea. If delicacy of flavor is what you’re after, however, it’s best to err on the side of lightness as you find your ideal times.
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