Your shopping cart is empty!
FREE SHIPPING OVER 35€
WELCOME COUPON €5 "CIAO5"
How do you make tea? The preparation of tea requires a lot of attention, in order to offer a truly satisfying experience while sipping on this beverage with a thousand properties, and within this article we will explain how to prepare a perfect cup of tea!
Pay attention though! We will NOT talk about how to prepare tea in a tea bag, but rather how to use tea leaves directly, the best quality of tea that you can buy and from which you can obtain a true tea. You may not know that tea bags actually contain the processing waste of the leaves, a tea powder that vaguely resembles the taste and flavor, but lacks any of the many acclaimed properties of this plant.
Many people contact us asking "how much water to use for a tea bag", or whether to "squeeze the tea bag or not", or "how many minutes a tea bag should steep for". In this article we will not answer any of these questions, but rather show you how to prepare a real tea at home, enjoying its aroma, flavor, scents, and properties.
Preparing tea is an art, but despite being one of the most popular beverages in the world, not everyone knows how to prepare a cup correctly (and not everyone knows how to spell tea in Italian!). Preparing a perfect cup of tea can actually result in a completely different and surprising outcome compared to preparing tea bags or loose leaf tea following the wrong steps. Preparing a cup of tea does not mean boiling water in the microwave and dipping a tea bag of dubious origin in it: the art of tea requires time, patience, and respect for this product. It is important to choose the type of tea, pay attention to the quality of the product, and try the different existing varieties, from green teas to black teas, to oolongs and white teas, learning that each tea has a preparation with different infusion times and water temperatures, and recognizing how these factors are important in enhancing the floral, smoky, woody, forest, fresh, and astringent notes of the different types of tea. To prepare a good tea, it is important to pay attention to:
Let's see together how to make the perfect cup of tea!
CHOOSE AMONG HUNDREDS OF TEA VARIETIES
Whether you prefer green tea, white tea, pu erh, or oolong, always choose loose leaf tea. Many people consider themselves tea lovers without ever having tasted a true cup of tea prepared with art. Making tea is an important process that starts from the choice of the variety of leaves to the moment it should be served, taking care to use the right accessories and the right teapot. Tea bags, therefore, cannot even be considered real tea, as they rarely contain whole leaves of Camellia Sinensis, the tea plant cultivated for centuries in different parts of the world to create the best teas. Loose leaf teas, especially those produced in areas where tea cultivation is an integral part of life, are precious products, unique in their flavor, which do not require sugar or other additives as they demand to be appreciated for their purity and high quality. How to make tea with leaves? How many grams of tea per cup? Let's see the other fundamental steps for a perfect preparation.
The infusion temperature of tea should never exceed a certain degree and varies from type to type of tea. The only infusions that can reach 100°C are black tea and herbal teas, although, the slightly more delicate black teas (like Darjeeling) should be infused at least at 90°C-80°C. Therefore, to avoid mistakes, just remember these standard temperatures:
How many grams of tea per cup? This is a big doubt that afflicts many tea lovers. Generally, for the preparation of a 200ml cup, 2-3g of tea leaves are used, which is about a teaspoon. But this does not indicate a mandatory quantity, in fact, it is possible to increase the quantity and decrease the infusion times at the same time to perceive the flavors more. This method, known as Gong Fu Cha, involves reusing the same leaves for repeated infusions. There are also different schools of thought, different traditions that see tea preparation in different ways: in the West, less tea is used with a longer infusion time, with a single extraction, while in the East, especially in China, a higher quantity of tea is used, with short but multiple infusions.
Infusion times of tea have a very important value in the preparation. They change according to our preparation preferences (stronger or lighter), so we can increase or decrease the infusion times.
Also very important is the attention to the utensils we will use for tea preparation. If you are a fan of this drink, take a look at the selection of tea accessories for sale on our shop.
For millennia, tea has been drunk in very small precious objects: teapots of 150-300 ml and cups of about 100 ml. In fact, large mugs are more suitable for flavored teas and herbal teas.
What are the general infusion times for different teas? Clearly, the time varies depending on the specific tea, but in general, the rule is:
Preparing loose leaf tea is very simple: Terza Luna, in fact, provides everything you need in their packages. You will only need a teapot, a jar of loose leaf tea, and a kettle. Let's see step by step how to prepare loose leaf tea:
Indeed, each type of tea has a different infusion time.
If you intend to prepare just one cup of tea, we recommend filling the teapot halfway. If, instead, you need to prepare two cups with the same tea, we recommend using two teaspoons of loose leaf tea and filling the teapot entirely with water.
It is also very important to always pour the water over the tea and never immerse the filter or the bag containing the leaves in the water.
To prepare a good cup of tea, all you need is a pot, a cup, and an infuser. However, there are tools that allow you to refine and perfect the tea preparation process, extracting taste and aromas optimally, taking your tea to the next level. Among these are the thermometer that allows you to measure the water temperature correctly, the hourglass to calculate the infusion time, and the various traditional teapots suitable for extracting the flavors of different teas: from the Kyusu Teapot to cast iron teapots, the Gaiwan Cup used as a teapot. Tea accessories are important tools that will change how you serve your tea perfectly.
Often, one of the most common mistakes is leaving the tea to infuse for too long. For this reason, it is often thought that black or green tea has a very strong taste, and therefore, flavored teas are chosen. In reality, using infusion hourglasses is a truly wonderful method because it offers exactly the right time to keep a particular type of tea infusing.
Indeed, if the tea is prepared correctly, that is, with the right water temperature, the right amount of leaves, and the right infusion time, you will get an excellent delicately balanced tea.
One of the most fascinating things about tea is learning about its preparation in different cultures around the world. Think, for example, of the difference in tea preparation in Japan and Morocco, almost opposite preparations.
In Japan, for example, Japanese teas are prepared with a traditional ceremony, with well-defined and precise rules; in Morocco, on the other hand, it is prepared very strong, with lots of mint and sugar, in a completely different context from the first.
In England, tea is still prepared in the famous 5 o'clock tea ceremony, in a living room with small porcelain cups, sandwiches, and pastries; while, in the rest of modern Europe, tea is consumed in a completely different way: maybe through take away or flavored teas, always in a hurry, as it only happens on this continent.
You have surely heard of matcha tea, the Japanese powdered green tea, rich in properties and benefits for our health. Being in powder form - you can read a whole article on how it is processed and on the benefits of matcha - this Japanese tea requires different care: from appropriate tools to a preparation method very different from the usual.
To better understand how to prepare matcha tea according to the traditional method, using the chasen - the traditional matcha whisk - we have created a video that shows you step by step how to proceed with the preparation of a good matcha tea.
Another very particular technique to prepare tea is the cold brew, or cold maceration: in summer, for example, we can prepare iced tea simply by letting the leaves macerate, not in hot water, but directly in cold water and extending the infusion time a little more. This process takes place without heating the water, inserting the tea leaves directly into cold water and leaving them in the fridge for about 3/4 hours.
This technique will offer the tea infusion much more delicate notes, it will allow us to prepare tea without boiling the water which in summer may not be ideal with the heat, and above all it will allow us to use many different types to offer at home.
DISCOVER HUNDREDS OF VARIETIES OF RARE TEAS
