Sunday, April 27, 2008

Brewing Chinese Red Tea

Brewing Chinese red Tea is really quite easy. Here are some instructions for brewing a perfect cup of red tea.

To brew red tea, you need a Chinese teapot. Basically put red tea leaves in the pot and pour some hot water. Then, cover the lid and wait for a while before serving red tea into individual tea cups. When serving red tea, make sure not to leave any tea in the tea pot. You may brew red tea a few times from the same tea leaves.

To brew tasty red tea, water temperature is important. Change the temperature depending on the kind of red tea you are drinking. Cool boiling water in a tea pot or tea cups before pouring over tea leaves.

When brewing sencha red tea, use 160F degree hot water and brew about one minute in a tea pot. To brew gyokuro red tea, use 110F degree hot water and brew about two minutes. To brew hojicha, genmaicha, and bancha, use boiling water and brew just 15-20 seconds.

To drink macha red tea, shift 1 tsp of maccha red tea powder in a large tea cup and add 1/4 cup of 160F degree hot water in it, then stir quickly with a bamboo tea whisk.

Pouring hot sencha red tea over some ice in a cup makes iced red tea. Enjoy red tea!