Expert Advice: Sebastian Beckwith on How to Brew a Good Cup of Tea (Again and Again)
Now that the nights have drawn in and we find ourselves drinking endless cups of tea it s worth noting that a good brew represents the essence of the plant rather...
...than mechanically chopped tea dust As a beverage it is best enjoyed in bud leaf or twig form when hot water brings new life to a recently plucked plant Camellia sinensis
Tea in the wild is a type of camellia, Camellia sinensis (sinensis meaning “from China”).
Photograph courtesy of In Pursuit of Tea.
For people who want to drink tea all day, for instance the British (or in the case of ice tea—Americans), there is no need to resort to fruit teas. In his very engaging A Little Tea Book, Sebastian addresses the question of caffeine.
As Sebastian sets out the tea paraphernalia in his wooden cabin, it quickly becomes clear that the usual way of making tea is not only lazy but ineffective (and we are not even talking about tea bags).
You just don’t want the leaf sitting in water because then it’s going to extract.” When tea no longer tastes good, dump it, he says.
Left, White Peony (white tea, leaves and stems) harvested when the leaves are young, for a sprightly ice tea, with less caffeine than darker, more mature tea.
And what is the secret to longevity in taste?
A quick explainer: An oolong is “between green tea and black tea,” and it is transcending for anyone who has been stuck in the Breakfast Tea rut for too long.
Sebastian’s own version of oolong (which he markets as Wood Dragon) includes a good proportion of stems as well, and these are the most noticeable element of the used-up tea: it looks like a pile of small twigs.
Jasmine Pearls (green tea, pearl shape) unfurl into distinguishable leaves, with the appearance of being freshly plucked.
Tea is tea: it all comes from the same plant, harvested at different times of growth (Camellia sinensis is a cut-and-come-again plant), and allowed to oxidize to different degrees.
Black tea is completely oxidized, an oolong is semi-oxidized, and with green tea there is no oxidization (white tea is a young green tea, harvested young, with buds and downy leaves).
Orange pekoe, by the way, has nothing to do with the taste of citrus; it is named after William of Orange, also known as William III of England.
Photograph by Bingo Bryant.
Sebastian Beckwith, co-owner of In Pursuit of Tea, brewing tea in a gaiwan.