The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea - Michael Harney [5]
Spoon
If you taste with a friend, you may both prefer to use a Chinese-style wide soup spoon to sample the tea instead of sipping directly from the cup. Although this is a common practice in professional settings involving many tasters, in a private tasting a spoon is entirely optional.
Water
There’s a favorite saying in the tea world: “Water is the mother of tea.” Before you start your teakettle, know that the chlorine and other chemicals in ordinary tap water will unfavorably affect the taste of these teas. Always use filtered water when tasting teas, unless you are fortunate enough to live near a spring; spring water is ideal.
Brewing Temperature
Different teas require different temperatures to fully release their flavors; generally speaking, the darker the tea, the hotter the water needed. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, but that heat will scorch white and green teas. Their more delicate flavors best emerge between 160 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the finest black teas taste best brewed at only 205 degrees Fahrenheit or so. You can buy electric water-dispensing pots, machines that heat water to precise temperatures. These machines are not necessary; just insert an instant-read thermometer into the spout of your kettle to gauge your water temperature before pouring the water over the leaves. Sometimes I give a range rather than a precise temperature; as with brewing time (see below), the exact temperature can vary with each batch of tea. Experiment to see what works best.
Brewing Time
Different teas brew best for different lengths of time; the darker the tea, the longer the brewing time. My brewing times are offered as guidelines only, as every tea is different: My box of Lung Ching may need three minutes, while yours may need only two. Observing both the tea liquor and body will help you gauge whether you have brewed your tea for the correct amount of time.
3. LOOKING AT THE TEA
The technical term for brewed tea is “liquor.” Knowing the ideal color of the liquor can also help you assess whether you’ve brewed the tea correctly. If you pour off something that looks darker or lighter than the color described in the tasting charts, you may have over- or underbrewed it. No matter—teas are so variable, even professional tasters often brew them imperfectly at first. Just start over, noting your adjustments for future tastings.
4. SMELLING THE TEA
Your nose is far more sensitive than your mouth when it comes to detecting flavor. Roughly speaking, your mouth can detect only four tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. Some say there are five, if you count the mouth-filling quality the Japanese call “umami.” Everything else—floral, fruity, piney, briny—we register through our noses. Wine tasters smell the wine itself before drinking, swirling the liquid in the glass to release the volatile aromatic compounds. Tea tasters don’t smell the tea, they smell the brewed tea leaves.
After draining the leaves, give them a minute to cool off. The very first smells will be only water, as the vaporizing rate of water is faster than that of the aromatic compounds in the leaves. After any danger of steam burns has passed, bury your nose in the pot. Don’t hold back—the first sign of a good tea taster is a few wet tea leaves stuck to the nose.
Breathe in through the nose and inhale deeply. Take several breaths if you need to in order to isolate and identify the scents. The aromas will begin to dissipate, but if you close the pot again, they will regather beneath the lid as they rise. Wait a few minutes, then smell again. This is where envisioning your favorite market or garden can really help. Do you smell gardenias in that oolong? honeysuckle in the white? papaya or some other tropical fruit in the Darjeeling? The aromas I provide in the tasting charts are ones I detected, but you may well