How to Brew a Pot of Tea

My electric kettle. I love it. Fill it full of cold water, plug it in, and wait for it to boil. Much faster than the stove top. While waiting for water to boil, fill teapot with hot tap water to warm the pot. This keeps it from breaking when the boiling hot water is added to it later.

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From left to right:teabags, tea ball/bell, strainer, and a T-Sac which holds the loose leaf tea. here is where we get into a bit of controversy. You may either brew your pot of tea from tea leaves, really, it’s ok, or you may chose to brew it form loose leaf. If you do loose leaf brew, there are a few more steps involved. 1. you need to decide if you will place the leaves directly into the teapot causing the need to decant later (if the leaves are left in the pot the tea over brews and becomes bitter) 2. use a tea bell, or strainer, 3. use a T-Sac. I chose a T-Sac for today’s brew as I do not like to mess with wet tea leaves and if you use a strainer or bell, you will be digging wet tea leaves out of them later. If you use a tea bell, only fill one side with dry tea leaves. This gives the leaves room to expand when steeping. No matter which vessel you use to hold the tea leaves while they steep, the general rule of thumb is to place one teaspoon of leaves for every cup of water the tea pot holds plus one for the pot. This pot holds 6 (6 oz) cups of liquid so I placed 7 teaspoons of leaves in my T-Sac.

Both the tea scoop and the teaspoon contain one teaspoon of dried tea leaves.

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Today I used my T-Sac

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When the water has come to a full roiling (turbulent) boil, drain the tea pot of the warming water, add the dried tea leaves and pour the hot water over the leaves while it’s boiling. Don’t wait for the water to stop boiling before pouring unless you are making a green or other delicate tea.

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The larger the leaf, the longer the steep. If you use prepackaged tea bags, steep for no more than 3-4 minutes. For a larger cut leaf, 5-7.

When the tea is done steeping, remove it from the tea pot, allowing the excess to drain but don’t squeeze the bag. This can make the tea taste bitter.

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