TeaChat

I was wondering, if oxygen is so desirable, wouldn't it be advantageous to pour the water from a great distance? I sometimes do this when i want to cool the water some, and it always creates lots of air bubbles. Im sure some of that oxygen also gets pushed "down in the water".

silverneedles wrote:free oxygen is dissolved in water (its what fish "breathe")
the boiling doesnt break the h2o bonds
when the water gets hot all h2o molecules become agitated, dissolved oxygen too-and it goes out of the liquid....

Thanks for straightening me out.

bearsbearsbears wrote:

hop_goblin wrote:I believe I read in the AofT that you want to keep boiling to a min since releases the oxygen in it. Oxygen is said to enhance the flavor. I will see if I can locate where I found it.

MarshalN posted an interesting look at Ming dynasty texts on water for tea & boiling:
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN/641264256/item.html

Cool! Thanks Bears

this is my first 2 page topic that i started! ...ok so that's not so impressive, but it brought a smile to my face
..obviously a much discussed topic. thanks for all the interesting comments so far.

would people suggest then that i not let the water reach boiling point when preparing and serving pu-erh tea? should i just let it get as hot as possible but just off the boil? i've noticed that the hottest water possible is recommended with some pu-erh bricks for example..

..as you can tell, i'm rather fastidious...

orguz wrote:I boiled them for 20/30 minutes.<etcetcetc>

How many rocks are you using? One small rock is more than enough, and it doesn't apear to take much time before it flavors the water.

I prefer bamboo charcoal and minerals to meifan stones.

I use the water from my ECM Giotto which is my espresso machine. It keeps the water at above 212'(!) since it's a pressure boiler for making espresso. Water sits at around 220' - 217' in the boiler at around 1.1 - 1.2 bar. I also have a zoji and can't tell the difference in taste. I use britta water both ways and it's good.

Orguz - I wouldn't use distilled for coffee or tea - no salts, no taste.. just like cooking. I would try going to your grocery store and buying the spring water in a gallon jug if you don't have a britta filter. It should make a big difference.

An interesting story... I'm a Chinese medicine practitioner and some Chinese herbal formulas from long ago call for 'lao shui' (old water - that's been standing for some time) and others call for ... uh... forgot the term, but basically it's water that's been re-ladled into the pot over 100 times. I guess that makes the water more frisky - which should make a frisky tea!
Geoff

My theory on the is that the harder the water [with in reason] the better the tea. When water is boiled the H2O evaporates, but dissolved solids to not. So each time you boil your water gets harder. Also, reboiling therefore has a good effect.

Ideally you avoid reboiling water. This caution is usually given to those that boil kettle again and again throughout the day. This is especially a concern with old fashioned kettles on a stove top. If you have an electric kettle and need to give water a little boost to reach the perfect temperature while doing gong fu, I don't think you should be overly concerned if you start with fresh water.

However if you boil water in your kettle in the morning make tea. Come back in the afternoon reboil. Come back in several hours and boil remaining water you are going to notice the water getting flat and that the teas are not sparkling.

Be aware, but don't obsess would be my suggestion.

Angela Justice wrote:Be aware, but don't obsess would be my suggestion.

Wha?????!!!! Isn't that what this website is all about???

Bubba_tea wrote: Wha?????!!!! Isn't that what this website is all about???

LMAO I don't see anyone obsessing. Tea is just THAT BIG A DEAL! Paying it any less attention would simply be denial ... like what everybody else is into.

It is. We are clearly obsessive teafanatics. I just want to encourage moderation. In order to make good tea, useful rules have been created over the centuries such as don't overboil your water. Since we as a collective entity tend to obsess over detail, some of us could probably relax. Occasionally reboiling warm water to get the temperature to the perfect point, won't severely compromise the quality of tea. That being said I go through three to four kettles of water a day tasting teas and drinking for enjoyment. It never has the chance to go stale.

And in answer to an earlier post it is desirable to let the water come from a distance. In Yunnan, they have water pourers for teahouses to refill pots of tea. I have seen these containers have spouts between 12" and 36". They are quite a challenge to pour from!

Also on the subject of hardness of water, in my area I consider our water ideal for tea - especially green and oolong tea. The dissolved solids/minerals in our drinking water ranges from 60 - 80 ppm. I have not enjoyed some green and white teas as much as at home when I make them in Massachusetts or New York because the water is softer sometimes as low as 20 ppm. In Las Vegas at Tea Expo three years ago, Cirqua, a water filtration company, told me dissolved solids in the hotel water was reading over 700 ppm. That water produced the worst cup of Dragonwell I have ever had in my life. The tea leaves were perfect...it was the icky water that spoiled the experience. So I would echo some hardness of water is useful, but extremely hard water is to be avoided. Also if the water is too soft, you will not get the full character of the tea.

The Cirqua booth at this past year's Expo was really illuminating. They had, if I recall, the same tea brewed with three different waters: distilled, Mandalay Bay tap, and Cirqua® Customized Water.

Dang. The distilled one was clearly boring. It just didn't have any body and brewed up light and insipid. The Manadalay Bay tap had, well, too much body! It was muddy and almost thick. And, of course, the Cirqua one was just right.

I wish their website gave more detail about what their products actually do. From what I can see, the guts of the operations look like RO units. Good RO filtration should be on par with distilled water. That is, it removes everything. I can't tell if the Cirqua filters are set to not be so darn effective or if they include a component that puts minerals back in. That's a bit beyond my scope.

Either way, I actually like RO water for tea--particularly if it's from a fairly cheap home unit in a high TDS area like where I live. I suspect that the home units let just enough minerals through to make for a clean, tasty brew.

Is it RO with a mineralizer? Some of the high end espresso shops use RO with a mineralizer to get to a specific hardness.. and ultimate control!

if anyone is interested in learning more about water hardness and filtering there's a very, very long essay here

http://big-rick.com/coffee/waterfaq.html

I learned a lot about water and water filtration / softening when I got into espresso because hard water can ruin the boiler. excessively hard or soft water also produced off flavors as does water that simply needs some filtering.

Water quality plays a huge role in the end result when brewing any beverage

Reverse osmosis?

My fish drink better water than I do.