Choosing And Brewing Tea: 5 Important Rules
Much is known about the benefits of tea: green tea improves memory and contains antioxidants that tone the skin and fight premature aging, while black tea normalizes metabolism and helps with stress. At the same time, tea is often chosen and prepared incorrectly and thus negates its beneficial properties.
How To Choose Tea?
There are several rules that will help you choose high-quality, and therefore healthy, tea. Here’s what you need to pay attention to.
Leaf size: Baikhov ( loose) tea is divided into large-leaf, medium-leaf (broken or cut), and small-leaf. The most expensive and rare is the whole black tea leaves tip. It contains unblown buds, tips, which are harvested by hand. It is not difficult to identify them by their appearance- the leaf buds are covered with silvery villi, and the mixture of them is classified as “long-term”. The more of them in tea, the higher the quality of the drink, the brighter the aroma and taste.
Color: It’s simple: black tea leaves should be black, green tea leaves green. Brown, brown, or gray colors indicate the poor quality of the mixture. The color should be uniform: if the shades of the leaves are different, then the mixture is made from different crops. A blend is allowed only for tea harvested in one year.
Uniformity. The leaves in good tea should be of the same shape and size, which is in accordance with the international standard. Poor quality tea often contains small leaf particles such as crumbs or dust.
Impurities. Good tea should not contain twigs, fragments of wood, paper, or foil. It is important to remember. That low-quality tea is prepared not only from especially crushed leaves but also from tea production waste.
Torsion. Strongly curled tea leaves australia are the result of good fermentation, which means that the tea is of high quality. In addition, curling will extend the shelf life of the tea leaves. For example, leaf tea should have long and thin curled leaves. A drink made from strongly twisted leaves turns out to be strong, from weakly twisted leaves – soft in taste and aromatic.
Humidity. The more moisture in the leaves, the lower the quality of the tea. At high humidity, it grows moldy and becomes poisonous. Overdried leaves are also devoid of beneficial properties. It is easy to check dryness: when rubbed, the tea should not turn into dust.
How To Brew Tea Correctly?
An ordinary tea party can be easily turned into a real ceremony. The secrets are pretty simple. Water for brewing tea must be filtered. Hard tap water with harmful impurities will impair the color and taste of the drink. If there is no filter, use bottled water to make tea.
Buy several varieties of tea, then you can prepare a drink for any occasion. Tea can help lift your spirits, cope with colds, relax or invigorate. Thyme tea helps with coughs. The antioxidants in green and white tea improve skin condition, fight premature aging and detoxify.green tea also improves health, keeps the body toned and energizes. Chamomile and mint tea helps with abdominal discomfort, has an anti-inflammatory effect and normalizes metabolism. Drink a cup of black tea when stressed: it lowers the hormone cortisol. To calm and relax, add mint to it. In the morning, bulk herbal tea bags or black tea will help you wake up like a cup of coffee.
A porcelain or earthen pot is ideal for making tea. Before brewing, it needs to be warned up. It is better to brew the leaves at a temperature of 80-90 degrees: boiling water will deprive the tea of its taste and aroma. To prepare the drink, one spoonful of tea leaves are needed, and small-leaf teas require less. Then the drink should be infused: black tea is usually brewed for five minutes, green, white and red- three minutes.
You don’t need to add sugar or milk to good tea. Milk protein will reduce the effect of valuable antioxidants, and sugar will overpower the taste of the drink. Add spices like cloves, ginger, or cinnamon to enhance the taste. Lemon will refresh the taste of both green and black tea. Experiment and sample drinks from different countries: Indian masala, Japanese matcha or Moroccan mint tea.
