Green Tea – Brewing

Brewing parameters for Japanese green teas can vary from tea to tea. The most important factor to think about in brewing a perfect Sencha or Gyokuro is to keep watch of the temperature. This brewing guide will be for senchas. Gyokuro will be presented when I embark upon it in a week or so. Matchas I will also cover in a week or so.

The tea leaves are very sensitive to temperature and brewing the tea with too hot of water or too cold of water will yield to a poorly prepared beverage.

For brewing you will need the following material:

1. Tea: This is obvious.
2. Tea Kettle
3. Tea-Pot (Kyusu): This is used by the Japanese to brew senchas. You can find some kyusus on eBay or on some reputable Japanese green tea distributors such as O-Cha.com and Den’s Tea.
4. 2 Cups: You will need two cups for one cup of tea. Basically you will always have an extra cup to pass water to. The cup should be able to hold 6-8 ounces of water. I use the traditional types of Japanese tea cups that hold approximately that much.

I have experience mainly with Fukamushi Sencha and regular Sencha distributed by Maruyama (highly recommended by O-Cha). For these two teas I like to use 6-8 oz of water per tea-spoon. Each tea-spoon would be around 5-6 grams. I would bring the water to near full-boil, where steam is coming from the spout of the kettle, but not enough for it to whistle signifying boiling.

Fukamushi Sencha

At this phase it’s probably around 190-200F. To cool the water off a bit, I transfer some water from the kettle to the tea-pot to pre-heat it.

The teapot that is used to brew these types of teas are refered to as “kyusu”s. You would want to get one with a strainer fixed before the spout. Because the strainer is integrated into the pot instead of having a tea-ball, you have more space for the tea leaves to expand, better extracting its essences.

From the kyusu one would transfer that water to the tea-cup. Measure the temperature. If it is still too hot to brew with, pass the water from that cup to another empty tea cup. Pass it from that tea-cup back to the original tea-cup you had to begin with. This will further allow the water to cool to the correct temperature range for brewing most Senchas (which is around 160-180F).

Put the tea leaves in the tea-pot and pour the water from the cup afterwards.

Steeping times can vary greatly between different tea types. Even within Senchas themselves the steeping times can still vary. It depends greatly on what you believe is good tea. The follow is a break-down of what works for me, and is usually a good starting point.

• 1st infusion: around 60 seconds
• 2nd infusion: around 45 seconds (I have found that the second steep is usually the most potent one. Usually the second infusion will be shorter than the first.)
• 3rd infusion: ~70 seconds (Might be longer for you. Generally it takes more time to get a similar taste as the first two infusions mainly because you have extracted much from the tea plants already.)

Usually with higher quality green tea, you can steep the tea up to 3 times. This should allow the  tea-connoisseur to have some peace of mind.

One may wonder why water has to be passed into the pot, out of the pot, into a cup, into another cup, etc. The main purpose to this is to make sure the temperature in the pot and cups are close to the temperature of the water. If you had a cold kyusu and poured let’s say, 160F water in it, then you might lose some heat through heat transfer from the water to the pot itself. Therefore, you will not be brewing the tea at 160F, but at a colder temperature. This could yield to a break-down in the brewing process equating to junk tea.

By passing water between the pot and cups, one finds immediately that when you brew your tea, you will have measured exactly how much water you want in your cup. You will also have pre-heated the cups themselves as well as the pot. This allows for more-precise brewing without having to rely on gadgetry to get the job done for you.

Many use sophisticated methods of solving these problems such as using digital thermometers, but one can also estimate. It all depends on how you want the tea to taste. Experiment with different routines used in brewing your tea, and take note of which methods work best.

Happy tea drinking!