Rituals & Brewing

Western brewing is what most of us already do. Doing it attentively is most of the difference between a forgettable mug and a good one.

1. 1

   Warm the vessel

   Swirl a little hot water in the mug and tip it out. A cold mug drops the water temperature immediately, which under-extracts the first and most important minute.

2. 2

   Measure the leaf

   Roughly 2–3g per 250ml — a heaped teaspoon. Err generous; you can always steep for less time, but you cannot add flavour that was never there.

3. 3

   Get the temperature right

   Green and white around 70–80°C, oolong 85–95°C, black and pu-erh at or near boiling. If you have no thermometer, let boiled water stand three minutes for green.

4. 4

   Steep, and taste as you go

   Start at two minutes and taste. Stop when you like it rather than when a packet tells you to. This is the step most people skip.

5. 5

   Remove the leaf

   Take the leaf out rather than leaving it in the cup. Tea left sitting keeps extracting, and what comes out last is the harsh end.

If the result is bitter, drop the water temperature by 10°C before you shorten the steep. Heat is the more common culprit.

A Chinese approach using a lot of leaf, a small vessel and many very short infusions, so you taste one tea change across a session rather than meeting it once.

1. 1

   Fill the vessel generously

   Around 5–8g in a 100ml gaiwan — far more than feels right if you are used to western brewing. Rolled oolong should cover the base; it will expand enormously.

2. 2

   Rinse the leaf

   Pour hot water over, then straight out again. This opens compressed leaf and warms everything. Smell the wet leaf in the lid — this is half the pleasure.

3. 3

   First infusion: seconds, not minutes

   Fill, then pour out immediately — ten to twenty seconds. Decant completely into the pitcher so the leaf is not left sitting in water.

4. 4

   Share, then taste

   Pour from the pitcher into small cups so everyone gets the same strength. Drink it in two or three sips rather than one.

5. 5

   Add a few seconds each round

   Each subsequent steep runs slightly longer as the leaf gives up less. A good oolong will go six or eight rounds; a good pu-erh considerably more.

The point is not precision. It is noticing that infusion four tastes unlike infusion one — which you cannot see at all when a tea gets one long steep.

Matcha is suspended rather than steeped. The whisking is the technique, and it is mostly about avoiding clumps.

1. 1

   Sift the powder

   Push 1–2g through a fine sieve into the bowl. Matcha compacts in the tin, and sifting is the single most effective anti-clump step.

2. 2

   Soak the whisk

   Rest the chasen in hot water for a moment. It softens the tines and makes them far less likely to snap.

3. 3

   Make a paste first

   Add a splash of water around 70–80°C and work it smooth against the bowl before adding the rest. Boiling water scorches matcha and turns it bitter.

4. 4

   Whisk in a W, not a circle

   Add about 60–70ml and whisk briskly in a W or M motion from the wrist. Circles push powder to the edge; a W aerates it.

5. 5

   Finish at the surface

   When a fine even foam forms, slow down and lift the whisk gently through the top to break any large bubbles.

Culinary grade is fine for lattes, where milk and sugar carry it. For drinking plain, a ceremonial grade is worth the difference.

Steeping in cold water extracts less of what makes tea bitter and astringent, so the result is sweeter and softer. It is also the hardest method to get wrong.

1. 1

   Use more leaf than feels right

   Roughly 8–10g per litre. Cold water extracts slowly, so a quantity that would be punishing hot is about right here.

2. 2

   Fill with cold water

   Straight from the tap or filtered. No need to boil and cool it first — that only adds a step.

3. 3

   Refrigerate 6–12 hours

   Greens and whites are ready sooner; blacks and oolongs take longer. Overnight suits almost everything.

4. 4

   Strain and keep

   Remove the leaf once it tastes right, or it will keep going. Drink within two or three days.

Cold brewing greens is the easiest way to taste how much of green tea bitterness is a temperature problem rather than the tea.

Simmered rather than steeped, and built from whole spices. This is a decoction, which is why a teabag in hot milk never quite gets there.

1. 1

   Crush the spices

   Cardamom pods, a short cinnamon stick, a few cloves, black peppercorns, fresh ginger. Crush them coarsely — bruising releases far more than pre-ground powder retains.

2. 2

   Simmer in water first

   Bring the spices to a boil in about 150ml of water per cup and let them go for five minutes. The water takes on the spice before anything else joins it.

3. 3

   Add the tea

   A heaped teaspoon of strong black tea per cup. Simmer two or three minutes — this is one place where a hard, brisk brew is wanted.

4. 4

   Add milk and sugar

   Roughly equal milk to water, and sugar to taste. Bring it back up and let it rise, then pull it off the heat.

5. 5

   Strain and pour

   Through a fine strainer into cups. Pouring between two vessels a couple of times aerates it and is traditional.

Proportions here are a starting point, not a recipe to defend. Every household that makes this regularly makes it differently.

Gunpowder green, spearmint and sugar, poured from height. The pouring is not showmanship — it aerates the tea and builds the foam that is meant to be there.

1. 1

   Rinse the leaf

   Cover the gunpowder with a little hot water, swirl, and pour it away. This takes the hard edge off the green tea.

2. 2

   Steep the tea

   Fill the pot with hot water — not quite boiling — and let the green tea steep for a few minutes.

3. 3

   Add mint and sugar

   A generous handful of fresh spearmint, pressed down into the pot, and sugar to taste. Traditionally rather more sugar than a first-timer expects.

4. 4

   Pour from height

   Pour into a glass from a foot or so above it, then return it to the pot. Repeat two or three times to mix and aerate.

5. 5

   Serve with foam

   Pour the final glasses from height so each carries a light head of foam. Serve in small glasses rather than mugs.

A cup of tea takes about four minutes to steep. This is a way of spending that time deliberately rather than filling it — no equipment, no app, no posture.

1. 1

   Put the phone somewhere else

   Not face down — in another room. The whole practice is four minutes of not reaching for it, and proximity makes that harder than it needs to be.

2. 2

   Watch the water change

   Pour, and then simply watch the colour move through the water. It is a surprisingly absorbing thing to look at when nothing else is competing.

3. 3

   Use the senses as anchors

   When your attention wanders — and it will — give it something concrete: the weight of the cup, the smell as the leaf opens, the sound of the pour.

4. 4

   Take the first sip slowly

   Before deciding whether you like it. Notice temperature and texture before flavour; they arrive first and usually go unremarked.

5. 5

   Let the restlessness be the practice

   Four minutes is long enough to feel impatient. That feeling is not a sign it is going badly — noticing it is the thing itself.

Keep it small enough to survive a bad week. A ritual that only works when you are already calm is not much use on the days you need it.