Tea Scoops, best functional design, how to use.

[Intuit]

A small, trifling matter of how best to dole out fluffy, large-leaved teas.

For years, I've been tapping my whole-leaved tea out of cannisters onto tea dishes for weighing or eyeballed mass estimation. The small scoops purchased for teas is reserved for small leaved or broken leaf teas.

How do you take your teas out of your tea storage containers? Do you use a scoop? Which scoop design works the best for your whole-leaf teas?

The reason I ask is that using scoops seems to break tea leaves if you have tea leaves that tend to mass together or are unwieldy. Makes it difficult to either shake out in a controlled manner or remove with scoops without breakage.

[Maitre_Tea]

Tim has a post on his blog about tea scoops that might prove helpful:
http://themandarinstea.blogspot.com/200 ... ls-02.html
Personally, when I'm using a scoop I'm not really "scooping" out the tea but just jostling the tea container until the teas make their way into the scoop. I like to use a narrower scoop for rolled Oolong, while I like to use a wider scoop for my wiry type Oolong...I'm like you though, and most of the time I don't bother with the "right" tools.

[Intuit]

Tim mentions rolling the tea onto the scoop. He also opines that a scoop provides some sort of serving size approximation.

Sorry, but I defy you to 'roll' a recalcitrant leaf tea onto a largish scoop surface when the tea containers are suitably SMALL for storing about a weeks worth of tea at a time. You might be able to 'roll' a tightly rolled oolong, picked pu'erh or small-leafed tea onto a scoop, but you may as well pour them out as scoop them - they're highly cooperative teas.

Large fluffy / wiry leaves that are tangled together? No way Jose.

Also, tea scoops vary considerably in volume. I don't see that much uniformity in commercial versions of tea scoops.
Example:
http://www.birdpick.com/teaspoons.html

Tim's antique scoops aren't exactly in common use. Nice examples of the art, though.

I was making up a very large leaved white tea yesterday afternoon when it occurred to me yet again that there must be a better way to do this, when tea refuses to cooperate smoothly when tapping/scooping or pouring it to measure a serving.

[Tead Off]

A small, trifling matter of how best to dole out fluffy, large-leaved teas.

For years, I've been tapping my whole-leaved tea out of cannisters onto tea dishes for weighing or eyeballed mass estimation. The small scoops purchased for teas is reserved for small leaved or broken leaf teas.

How do you take your teas out of your tea storage containers? Do you use a scoop? Which scoop design works the best for your whole-leaf teas?

The reason I ask is that using scoops seems to break tea leaves if you have tea leaves that tend to mass together or are unwieldy. Makes it difficult to either shake out in a controlled manner or remove with scoops without breakage.

What's wrong with the way you are doing it? Tapping out a required amount onto a dish or other vessel to transport to a scale or teapot seems fine. Most of my Tea Caddys are narrow opening ones where a scoop doesn't fit. If I'm weighing an amount, I tap into a small container that goes on the gram scale.

[Intuit]

Well, tapping out onto weighing paper/boat is how we measure out small quantities of finely divided powders or crystalline compounds. I started tapping teas long ago out of lab technique habit. I had no idea what others here used, other than the occasional mention of a scoop.

*shrug* Some teas don't 'do' tapping very well, the aforementioned white teas and some large leaved oolongs and Chinese black teas. I hesitate to resort to picking a pinch of leaves out by hand. Not very elegant...LOL.

I think the idea is not to dwaddle when opening canisters to remove a serving, limiting exposing fragrant teas to air/humidity - say, from boiling water nearby.

[Maitre_Tea]

I think maybe with smaller containers, and for tea leaves that are especially stubborn, maybe you can use a chashaku to gently "scrap" the tea leaves out...never done this before, but it's something that just came to mind.

[Tead Off]

Well, tapping out onto weighing paper/boat is how we measure out small quantities of finely divided powders or crystalline compounds. I started tapping teas long ago out of lab technique habit. I had no idea what others here used, other than the occasional mention of a scoop.

*shrug* Some teas don't 'do' tapping very well, the aforementioned white teas and some large leaved oolongs and Chinese black teas. I hesitate to resort to picking a pinch of leaves out by hand. Not very elegant...LOL.

I think the idea is not to dwaddle when opening canisters to remove a serving, limiting exposing fragrant teas to air/humidity - say, from boiling water nearby.

You can search for different sized scoops. I have a narrow bamboo one and it seems to do the job with everything. I try to be a bit careful with the Yancha, but, some broken leaves in the pot is actually desirable and many Chinese drinkers will intentionally crush maybe 15% of the leaves to release more flavor. For me, tapping out is the easiest.

[Victoria]

I mostly just tap or shake out. If they are particularly big leaves, I have a pair of small wooden tea tongs.

[Herb_Master]

I mostly just tap or shake out. If they are particularly big leaves, I have a pair of small wooden tea tongs.

+1

However although I intend to use tongs or another tool from my tea set, I usually use fingers to transfer the last few leaves that I need.


However since I had a problem with one canister where all the small broken bits settled at the bottom, I was advised to pour the whole contents of a new batch of tea onto a large sheet of paper and package into small caddies / containers / packets just the right size for a session, with a balance of whole leaf and broken bits shared equally.

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10469

I have not yet taken advantage of this solution

[Proinsias]

I recall Stéphane Erler posting something a while back about handling tea leaves. I've found it quite useful when dealing with something like yancha in a wide lidded container or foil packet. Providing your hands are clean and dry I've not found a better way to delicately remove leaf from a container than using my fingers. It's also nice to handle the tea for a bit, seems less clinical to me and a bit more personal.

Along with Nada's mention of letting tea leaves sunbath a little to waken them up a bit before brewing I've found it to be a nice way of making tea on a sunny day, although I don't get too many of them in Scotland.

My tea scoop is underused, generally reserved for very small or broken leaf tea. Most stuff in the middle just gets tossed straight from the container into the brewing vessel and if I end up with too much or too little there are plenty other variables to play with.

[Intuit]

Good reply. I have handled tea, delicately pulling out a pinch or two of tangled leaves when necessary.

I can't get my large scoop into smaller containers - as you point out, Scotsman, the scoop tends to go unused. OTOH, I found a tea presentation vessel to be a highly useful. It's another tea accessory that gets short shrift here.

You know you're in hot water, obsessionwise, when you begin to eye soap or candy dishes for this purpose because of a distinct retail lacking for suitable tea dishes.

Characterless white porcelain tea presentation dishes: talk about clinical...

[wyardley]

I like the wide bamboo type. Got mine for like $3 at Ten Ren, but sometimes they only sell them in a package with a bunch of other stuff.

Seconding (thirding) the method involving kind of slightly tilting / moving the container just enough to get the leaves on top of the scoop without breaking them.

[Bubba_tea]

Along with my microwave steaming tray (aka, work tea tray) or my home use glow in the dark frisbee (shop tea tray)... I use 4x6 card stock. I put the card on the scale, dump the tea, then bend it to make a funnel and use that to deposit into my brewing vessel. Some teas, like the da wu ye, are so long that the scoop is useless and you break leaves unnecessarily. I have a nice tea scoop somewhere, but it's at the bottom of the barrel.