Roasting Leaves Before Brewing

[trent]

http://tea-obsession.blogspot.com/2008/ ... -fire.html

After reading this article by Imen, I decided to try it out. This one step has made a huge difference in the taste and aroma of my tea. It seems to benefit any kind of tea, discluding green.

has anyone else tried this?

[bsteele]

I would say including green tea. I've roasted my sencha to get hojicha.

But I guess the question is, are you talking about roasting the leaves or simply warming the leaves?

[trent]

I just warm them up to rid the leaves of excess moisture and release aroma.

[tsverrir]

I've used this method to bring back stale high mountain oolongs and have had good results.

[Romance Writer]

Wow this sounds interesting. I will have to give it a try.

[bsteele]

I just warm them up to rid the leaves of excess moisture and release aroma.

Ah, in that case, I've never tried warming up the leaves. I'll have to try it

[teashionista]

I was told by a tea vendor once that roastsing less-than-fresh green tea (we were discussing Long Jing at the time) can bring out the flavor. The vendor recommended roasting LJ for just a short while, until the fragrance of the leaves becomes more pronounced. I've tried it on my last year's crop of LJ recently with great results! The tea smells just a tad toastier, and the flavor does not compare to fresh tea, but it definitely improves.

The only issue is that if you do it for too long, the flavor profile changes completely (as in Sencha and Houjicha). But overall, I think it's a great technique.

[xuancheng]

I have had mostly good results with tea roasting in my rice cooker, if you do use the rice cooker method, make sure to only turn the rice cooker on 'warm,' never 'cook' otherwise the tea will burn quickly. Also never shut the top of the rice cooker, just cover it with a paper.

I know Imen mentions these thing, but I have ruined teas by not following her instructions closely.

[kymidwife]

I've done this with some stale oolongs.. with very good results. Instead of a rice cooker, I've just tossed the leaves around in a pre-warmed non-stick cook pan on the stovetop. I prewarmed the pan and then turned the burner down to it's very lowest setting, and held the pan slightly above the burner, not sitting ON the burner... and gently moved the leaves around in the pan. It worked nicely, really refreshed the leaves and made my kitchen smell great.

Sarah