Tea
Black Tea, Smoked Tea, Green Tea, Oolong Tea…
Delicious in their own right, but teas can also be used in cocktails. They’ve been used in mixed drinks for hundreds of years, originally in Punch, the precursor to the cocktail that goes back more than 300 years.
Tea is the same as many ingredients, in that the higher the quality, the more carefully it has to be handled. Badly brewed fine green tea is literally undrinkable due to over-extracted tannins through excessive heat and / or over-brewing.
In this section we will help you avoid these pitfalls, and show you three different ways to introduce the delicious flavours of tea to your drinks, no matter how delicate they are.
As with all great drinks it comes down to getting the ratio right. In this case, it’s finding the perfect ratio and delicate balance of:
- How long you brew for
- How much tea you use
- The temperature at which you brew
- Agitation (or not) during brewing
To be clear here, by TEA, we mean the processed leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant. This single amazing plant gives us ALL teas. The growing conditions (think wine), processing, and storage of the leaves differentiate every tea on the planet.
However, you can also brew things that are not TEAS, such as dried fruit or herb ‘teas’ like chamomile, peppermint or raspberry. Be aware that in some cases, these ingredients will be mixed in with tea leaves too, so take care when brewing.
