Why water temperature matters when making tea
In many of our previous workshops, one of the most commonly asked questions is
“Why does the tea I make at home taste so different from
the one I sampled or had at a cafe?”
And our first question in return is always
“Did you use boiling water?”
News flash: you probably just burnt your tea. (And yes, we do see shock on people’s faces when they learn that they should probably not use boiling water)
Making tea may seem foolproof. Technically, all we need is to just pour hot water over dry leaves and to wait for a few minutes. Some of us also enjoy a cup of bubble tea (or boba tea) that is laden with sugar and lots of flavoured syrups (which is also the reason why we’ve never really experienced taste notes like bitterness or astringency, they’ve all been skilfully masked).
If tea is so straightforward, then why does your tea taste bad at home? Is your tea of poor quality, even though you’ve spent good money buying what you believed to be a good, premium tea?
Do you… just add milk and sugar then…?
By this point of our article, you should have already guessed – your tea probably has no quality issues, so put that milk and sugar away. You may have just used the wrong temperature to brew your tea!
“I burnt my tea? What do you mean?”
Simply put, the wrong temperature may have destroyed the amino acids and aromatic compounds in your tea. When temperatures are way too high, too much polyphenols get extracted too, resulting in excessive bitter notes.
On the flip side, when temperatures are too low, your tea leaves may not adequately unfurl (especially for rolled oolongs), and you may end up under extracting the desired taste notes.
Water Temperature Matters
Here’s a general guideline for water temperatures that you should use for the different types of teas:
White Tea: 80 - 85°C (175 - 185°F)
Green Tea: 80 - 85°C (175 - 185°F)
Yellow Tea: 80 - 85°C (175 - 185°F)
Japanese Green Tea: 70 - 85°C (160 - 185°F)
Oolong Tea: 85 - 95°C (185 - 205°F)
Rolled Taiwanese Oolongs: Water fresh off rolling boil
Black Tea: 90 - 98°C (195 - 210°F)
Puerh Tea: 90 - 98°C (195 - 210°F)
Compressed Tea / Tea Brick / Fermented Tea: 90 - 98°C (195 - 210°F)
But I Don’t Have A Thermometer!
Fret not, here’s what you can do:
Get a water kettle with temperature control.
Boil your water, then wait.
In general, boiled water cools by about 5°C (or 41°F) every 1 - 2 minutes (depending on climate conditions).
Experiment… Experiment… Experiment!
As mentioned above, climate conditions can affect how fast your water takes to cool.
What I really encourage you to do is to experiment with your teas. If you’ve burnt your teas previously, then try waiting for 5 minutes before you pour boiled water onto your tea leaves this time. If it tastes just right, then congratulations, you’ve figured out your perfect cup! Otherwise, keep trying. It shouldn’t take too many tries to nail the perfect brew. Once you get the hang of things, you’ll realise that you can even make do without a water kettle with temperature control.
Must I really adhere to the temperature guidelines? That’s too much of a hassle.
Well ideally… Yes. If you have spent good money on premium quality teas, what’s stopping you from taking an extra step or two to elevate your tea experience?
Tea has been around for a long time and for good reason. The very act of brewing tea promotes mindfulness, so it’s not a completely bad idea to try your best to carve out a little bit of extra time. So what’s really stopping you from doing that today?
