Tea v. 2.0
Jun. 30th, 2013 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikSo, since my last attempt at making tea my tea bush had a difficult winter, so I've been letting it recover and grow out in the sun. Of course, this means the new leaves darken more quickly, so it's something I might want to reconsider later. But on Friday I decided to gather up some of the new leaves, and so I did, picking just the last two at the end of any given twig, and the arranging them on a steamer plate to be steamed for a slow count of 36, and so half enzymatic oxidation (what is usually called fermentation.)
After this, I let the leaves sit on a rack and dry a bit. Frankly, I'm thinking I should have let them dry a bit more, but that's most a matter of hindsight. The idea is to allow them to wither a bit, until they've lost their excess liquid and become leathery and pliable. But as I said, they were a bit on the damp side of leather when I worked them. Mostly a wadded them all up together into a ball and kneaded them like dough. The idea here, as I understand it - I haven't found the best documentation of this step, and this is the step I missed last time* - is that you want to break through the waxy coating of the leaves, and possibly through the cell walls as well.** Some of the leaves did not seem impressively worked from my first attempt, and those I rolled between my fingers into little balls. Kind of the way I would if I were trying to work the liquids out of leaves to rub on my skin, say. Afterwards I smoothed out the wadded up leaves.
And then laid them out on a rack to dry:
The next morning, dried, they looked like this:
You might notice that some leaves are significantly darker than others. Those are generally the leaves I rolled between my fingers after working them as a wad. I'm thinnking that when processing such a small number of leaves, this might be a better process. Certainly, when I brewed tea the next day the darker leaves produced a more flavorful drink.
Altogether, though I liked it rather a lot. I think even more working of the leaves is in order, but it was entirely respectable.
(Though my phone cam pics with their lousy color balance are not especially respectable.)
* Most sources in English don't include this step, but my experiences with skipping it were that very little flavor was imparted to the water when I brewed the tea.
** Okay, clearly I need to section the leaves and look at them next time I make tea, before and after working the leaves.
After this, I let the leaves sit on a rack and dry a bit. Frankly, I'm thinking I should have let them dry a bit more, but that's most a matter of hindsight. The idea is to allow them to wither a bit, until they've lost their excess liquid and become leathery and pliable. But as I said, they were a bit on the damp side of leather when I worked them. Mostly a wadded them all up together into a ball and kneaded them like dough. The idea here, as I understand it - I haven't found the best documentation of this step, and this is the step I missed last time* - is that you want to break through the waxy coating of the leaves, and possibly through the cell walls as well.** Some of the leaves did not seem impressively worked from my first attempt, and those I rolled between my fingers into little balls. Kind of the way I would if I were trying to work the liquids out of leaves to rub on my skin, say. Afterwards I smoothed out the wadded up leaves.
And then laid them out on a rack to dry:
The next morning, dried, they looked like this:
You might notice that some leaves are significantly darker than others. Those are generally the leaves I rolled between my fingers after working them as a wad. I'm thinnking that when processing such a small number of leaves, this might be a better process. Certainly, when I brewed tea the next day the darker leaves produced a more flavorful drink.
Altogether, though I liked it rather a lot. I think even more working of the leaves is in order, but it was entirely respectable.
(Though my phone cam pics with their lousy color balance are not especially respectable.)
* Most sources in English don't include this step, but my experiences with skipping it were that very little flavor was imparted to the water when I brewed the tea.
** Okay, clearly I need to section the leaves and look at them next time I make tea, before and after working the leaves.
