Making Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the teapot by scalding it with boiling water.
Place the tea leaves in the heated pot.
Pour a small quantity of boiling water over the leaves and let it steep for a few seconds.
Add more boiling water to the pot.
For large quantities, use muslin bags for the tea leaves and remove them when the infusion is strong.
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
- Tea leaves
- Provide the flavour and aroma that the hot water extracts into the infusion.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavour from the tea leaves and forms the liquid of the infusion.
The step that matters
Pour a small quantity of boiling water over the leaves and let it steep for a few seconds. Wetting the leaves first lets them open and begin releasing flavour evenly before the rest of the water is added. Steeping too long or too strongly can make the tea bitter, since tannins extract with time and heat.
“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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