How to Brew Loose Leaf Tea

Want to know more about how to brew the perfect pot of loose leaf tea? Find out more about loose leaf tea here: bit.ly/2OlbZoY

Find out more about the Chelsea Teapot: bit.ly/2F0hwlw
Find out more about English Rose Back Tea: bit.ly/2zmZCmR

There’s a common misconception that making loose leaf tea is really arduous but actually with the right equipment it's incredibly simple and much better for the environment.

Today, I’m going to use our Chelsea teapot. Its made of glass so you can really see what’s going on inside as the tea steeps

I’m going to make our English Rose which is a black tea blend with rose buds.

Now depending what type of tea, you want to make you need to adjust the temperature of the water and the amount of leaf that you use.

Don’t worry, our packaging all has specific instructions on it.

In general, you want to use freshly boiled water for black teas and puerh tea and fruit and herbal infusions.

For white, green and yellow teas you use 80-degree water. They are more delicate and using freshly boiled water will burn the leaf and make the flavour slightly bitter.

Black tea is best with one spoon per person and this teapot is quite big so I’m using two and I’m going to use freshly boiled water.

Again, black tea and fruit and herbal infusions are best with freshly boiled water. The higher temperature pulls out a lot of the colour from the leaf and also flavours that work well with milk if you’re drinking a black tea, so it pulls out polyphenols, caffeine and catechins.

The average steeping time in Britain is 3.5 seconds and that is just not long enough for the really lovely complex flavours of tea to come through. So, you do have to be patient with loose leaf.

You also do not want to squash tea leaves. many people squash the bag against the side of the cup to make it infuse quicker. But this is a terrible thing to do to tea as it pulls out all the tannings and the bitter flavour compounds that you just don’t want in your tea.

One of the major benefits with loose leaf teas when you get a good quality blend is that you can steep it several times.

So black tea and fruit and herbal we recommend one or two steeps but green tea, puerh, oolong tea are all fantastic for three or four.

Now all that’s left is to pour and you’ve got that beautiful infusion. Black tea just gives a little bit longer if you want to add milk but otherwise, this kind of colour is perfect, and you can enjoy your tea

If you’d like to learn more about loose leaf tea go to 'whittard.co.uk' or click in the link in the description.