What are the benefits of stewing cooked tea? Learn these 3 tips for even better brewed tea!

Why are more and more tea lovers enjoying stewing cooked tea?

What is stewing cooked tea?

Braising cooked tea involves placing cooked tea into a thermos or teapot, adding hot water, and then sealing the pot for a period of time (usually 5-10 minutes). This allows the tea leaves to fully release their inherent properties in the high-temperature, sealed environment, resulting in a rich, aromatic, and mellow tea.

What are the benefits of stewing cooked tea?

01. Convenient Drinking

Stewing cooked tea only requires a thermos and tea leaves. As long as there's boiling water, you can enjoy a cup of delicious tea anytime, anywhere, making it perfect for outdoor activities or business trips.

Whenever I'm outdoors or traveling, I love stewing a pot of cooked tea. The warm tea really elevates my mood!

02. Richer Aroma and Fuller-Bodied Tea

Simmering cooked tea allows the tea leaves to extract more of their essential nutrients under continuous high temperatures. Compared to brewed tea, stewed cooked tea has a richer aroma. Some teas even have a distinct glutinous and jujube aroma, resulting in a richer, smoother, and rice-like texture.

Guyun Ripe Cake is my favorite cooked tea. Made with carefully selected ingredients from Iceland and Xiaohuangtian, it's fermented using a small pile fermentation process. It has a pure aroma with notes of glutinous and jujube, which becomes even more pronounced after stewing. The flavor is rich and sweet, making it a great daily tea!

03. Inspecting the Quality of Cooked Tea

If you're unsure how to choose cooked tea, stewing may be a straightforward and simple method.

Stewing cooked tea is a double-edged sword: while it can amplify the tea's strengths, it can also exacerbate its weaknesses. If the cooked tea already has an unpleasant odor, stewing will make it even more pronounced. In general, stewing cooked tea is not only convenient but also improves the taste. It also helps us identify the quality of a particular tea.

How to stew cooked tea?

Master these three tips to easily brew delicious tea.

01. Tea-to-Water Ratio

You don't need too much tea leaves when stewing cooked tea. A recommended tea-to-water ratio of about 1:200 is recommended. For example, in a 500ml thermos, about 2.5 grams of tea leaves is sufficient. Adding too much tea leaves will make the tea soup too strong, affecting the taste.

02. Steeping Time

After placing the tea leaves in the thermos, the process is the same as for brewing tea. First, rinse the tea with boiling water, then refill with boiling water. Steeping time varies and can range from 15 minutes to half an hour or even longer.

I usually stew a pot of cooked tea before breakfast, then get back to other things after breakfast. By the time I have some free time for tea, it's not uncommon for me to have been stewing for two hours.

Steeping cooked tea is also a great companion for working while drinking tea.

03. "Leaving the Tea Roots to Stew" for Reinvigorating the Tea

When brewing cooked tea, the tea must be drained completely, otherwise it will affect the taste of the next infusion. However, the opposite is true when stewing cooked tea.

After stewing cooked tea, don't pour out all the tea at once. Leave a third of the tea and then top up with boiling water. This will enrich the flavor of the subsequent infusions.

If you're brewing and drinking, pour out a portion of the tea before topping up with boiling water and continue stewing.

As tea leaves soak in water, they continuously release their contents, preventing the tea from being too strong and ensuring that subsequent infusions are more flavorful.

For those who enjoy cooked tea, try adding other ingredients like red dates and longan to the stewing process for a sweeter and more fragrant tea!

Conclusion:

The same tea leaves can be enjoyed in different ways. Ripe tea is highly tolerant, mild and non-irritating, and widely accepted. I suspect this is why it's considered suitable for everyday life.

Tasting tea is like savoring life; sometimes, a simple, ordinary life can be a kind of happiness.