I’ve been trying out lots of different loose teas from Harney & Sons and am currently sipping a mug of Osmanthus Oolong, which I’m finding to be a delicious, complex flavor experience. The description on the tin suggests resteeping the leaves (which unfold very large, I found) for even more complex flavors. I had noticed this suggestion for other teas but hadn’t tried it yet. Given how many different teas I have on hand right now (counting…mumble mumble…oh my) it had seemed not worth pursuing, but now I wonder, am I missing out on anything?
I can’t see much point in trying resteeping with supermarket teas, now that I’ve become hooked on specialty loose teas, and I certainly don’t have to stretch my tea-buying budget with that (already blown through it anyway), but I do wonder whether other of you Dopers have done it, and with what results.
Oh, yeh – for preparation I heat the water in an electric kettle and pour over the tea resting in a little bucket-shaped strainer atop my mug, then let it sit for the indicated time. The strainer has wings to either side for resting on the mug rim and holding onto the strainer when I remove it. None of those hinged-spoon type thingies.
I’ve noticed those tend to be used for the higher-end teas, probably because they’re better for steeping, and the lower-end tea bags are flat for more efficient packaging. I don’t like them because my tea tongs don’t open wide enough to get a solid grip on them.
I used to do it ages ago, and my experience was that it just made a weaker cup of tea. Though that was cheap tea; it might work better with the good stuff.
Certainly it’ll be much lower in caffeine, if that matters to you.
I mostly do it when i want another cup of tea and don’t want to much more caffeine. I steep it long enough the first time that it’s significantly weaker the second time. But most teas are still okay the second time.
My husband carefully times his tea-steeping and routinely steeps a second time. But it’s still weaker.
You are supposed to use high-quality tea (not floor sweepings), not skimp on the amount (the first random web site I found says 7 grams per 100 ml, but obviously the correct amount will depend on the variety of tea, etc.), and not steep the leaves too long, so that you can repeat the process a bunch of times (definitely more than two or three, possibly many more)— perhaps only 10 seconds the first time, then you could try 15 seconds, and so on.
That is for Chinese tea (meaning the manner in which it is prepared and served; the leaves themselves may come from India or other sources). For Russian tea, you use at least twice as much tea as that, brew it for 2–3 minutes, and the process is not repeated, instead hot water is served from a samovar. So, it depends on what you are doing…
I have the Pu-ehr mini cakes that become quite a large amount upon steeping. They make a huge, coffee-dark cup of tea. Then I save the leaves and resteep them to make 2 quarts of iced tea. I can’t say it tastes any better, per se, but it is nice to be able to get more tea out of each one.
