Ep.2 Different ways you can brew tea

2 min readOct 3, 2018

Tea brewing has centuries of history so its logical that there are also tons of ways that you can brew tea. That said tea brewing or coffee for that matter comes down to a few things time, temperature and surface area of the tea.

Basically its all about extraction so the reason why your tea bag usually tastes quite bitter is because most tea bag contain low quality tea which are generally tea dust that extracts almost immediately. Now tea dust has a lot of surface area compared to tea leaves like powdered sugar to a cube of sugar.

Temperature is a factor too because the higher temp you use the more tea you extract. This is very important especially for green tea if you don’t use the correct temperature (around 85 degrees) your green tea will be super bitter.

2. Time is a factor because more time means stronger tea.

Why am i telling you all this? It is because the tannins inside tea that makes it bitter mostly comes out when you use high temperature or when you steep for a long time.

Now we go to the methods

Western Style the style we know and mostly don’t love

This method is when you use very little tea usually around 2g and brew it with a whole kettle of water that is around 300–400ml. What you get is tea that has some flavor and is usually mildly to moderately bitter. Bitterness and astringency is what you will most find in this method of tea brewing.

Pros

Cheaper

Cons

You don’t get the full flavor of the tea
Mostly bitter
Weak tea
1–2 infusions only

Gongfucha style brewing

This is the method I would suggest using a lot of tea around (3–5g per 100ml) but brewing for a very short period of time around 10–30 seconds. What you get is a very flavorful tea that shows you the character of the tea while having very little bitterness.