Brewing Black Tea

Video Transcript

"Now I am going to talk about black teas and the specific steeping time and temperature you need when preparing black tea. Okay, so right here I have a nice black tea and you can see just the characteristics of the leaf. It is more withered and the leaves are smaller than the green tea and the white tea that I have shown you previously. When steeping or brewing black teas it is going to higher temperature and a longer amount of time to really bring out the full flavor of the black tea. But the constant will be that you will use one tea spoon of black tea for one cup of tea. So I am going to put the teaspoon in my teapot and as far as temperature goes you are going to want to get as close to boiling as possible. If you bring your tea kettle to a boil and then remove it from the stove you are going to lose a few degrees on the way to your teapot. That is fine. Two O six to two-twelve. If you are using a hot water dispenser or a thermometer you can get an exact temperature. If you are not you just take your tea kettle off the stove after it reaches a boil and fill your teapot or your tea cup with a defusing ball in it, whatever apparatus you are using. You close the lid to keep the heat from escaping and as far as time goes we are going to do a black tea from three to five minutes. Now at five minutes it might start taking on a bitter quality if you start steeping it longer than five, but generally it is going to need at least three to really start bringing out the familiar flavors of black tea."