TeaChat

Hey everyone,
I'm new to loose tea (picked up an ingenuiTEA with christmas money) and have a question about floating leaves, namely hojicha green tea. Well... is it ok for tea leaves to float for the whole steeping time? The tea seems a little weak, but maybe it is how it's supposed to be, I know green is a "delicate" variety. I'm using fresh water filtered through a brita pitcher. Possibly the water is not quite hot enough? Anyways, thank you to anyone who has any insight on this problem or lack thereof.
Evan

Sometimes that happens.

In general, a leaf will sink after it's completely soaked with water, so if they aren't sinking, they aren't absorbing the water, and so aren't releasing the good stuff into the water.

But nonetheless, some leaves will just float. A good way to ensure they fall is to agitate them by stirring them around some.

Or just use a strainer.

Heating the water more will help. I generally use boiled water, and let it sit for a little while to cool to the right temp. I'm not very specific about it, so I have no idea about the actual temp. I actually count out a certain amount of breath cycles for each tea. Green tea = 10 breaths of waiting after I remove from the heat source.. which is probably around 30 seconds or so, hehe.

Hope that helps,
Troy

Yeah, I will have to try hotter water. When I'm making it probably ninety percent of the leaves were floating. They were all wet, I pour the water onto the leaves, but most were floating. Not so sure about the breathing cycle thing however thank you for your comment, we'll see how hotter water works tomorrow morning.

My teas often float and it never seems to affect the tastes...You can make most teas sink by a quick whisk of a spoon.

if you are pouring water onto the leaves then you should have no concern if your tea floats.