Making Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Scald the teapot with boiling water to cleanse and heat it.
Add 1 teaspoon of loose tea for each person to the pot.
Brew
Pour boiling water over the tea, covering the pot to prevent steam from escaping.
Let the tea infuse in a hot place for 7 minutes without boiling.
Serve
Pour the tea into cups immediately after infusion.
For a larger group, use two teapots to serve more tea efficiently.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Loose tea
- Supplies the flavour and aroma that the hot water draws out of the leaves.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavour from the leaves and carries it into the cup as the tea infuses.
The step that matters
Let the tea infuse without boiling. Keeping the water hot but not boiling, with the pot covered, extracts flavour steadily while retaining volatile aroma. Boiling the leaves releases more bitter tannins and drives off aromatic compounds, leaving the tea harsh and flat.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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