Brewing Large Quantities

[fencerdenoctum]

Dearest ITD members,

My Tea "lecture" is coming up soon and I have the setup and everything else set, save for one thing.

I'm brewing 4 different teas for 50 people. This is a LOT of tea. The problem, I have never in my life made tea for this many people. My college's dining center is helping me out with this one and said they would assist with the brewing but I want to insure the best quality of the teas I'm brewing. Can anyone suggest some ways I can brew massive quantities of tea with reasonable results? I have storage of the liquid handled.

I had thought of brewing everything with the array of pots I have to ensure better temp/leaf control, but that would take FAR too long.

Scratching his head,
Fencer

[Wesli]

The absolute best would be to make it each time individually. I really can't say how to do it any other way, because this is the only way I would do it if I were in your position.

[CynTEAa]

What size cups will you be using? I think if you keep them small it will be manageable.

Does the kitchen have dispensing hot pots on hand like Fetcos? Or large strainers?

[Space Samurai]

Dude, thats tough.

For 50 people, I think you may have to sacrifice quality for quantity. If you have access to larger urns or something that will keep the tea warm, you can make it before hand and serve as you go.

[skywarrior]

Tea for 50? [Boggles]

Individual small tea pots maybe? I know they're out there. Small strainers and cups.

[Space Samurai]

The tea class I just did had 13 people. We devided them up in tables, and I prepared the teas gongfu style at each table with a gaiwan.

Problem 1: That was only 13 people and I kept busy the whole time. You would definitely need help for 50.

Problem 2: That's a lot of gaiwans.

[ABx]

I would think that the easiest way would be to experiment a bit to find the amount of leaf perfect for the size brewing vessel so that you can start it steeping and forget about it, similar to glass brewing. I imagine that something that gives off enough heat to prevent over-steeping would help here. Perhaps one of the very large french presses?

The other thing that comes to mind is how iced tea is commonly made - brew very strong so that it can be diluted. This would allow for less time steeping all that tea.

My local tea store, Serenity Art, sells teaware for restaurants - tea balls that are 6-8 inches in diameter, huge "community" teapots, and so on. If you have such a place you might check into it. If nothing else you may be able to use the same concept - figure out the proportions for the largest stock pot (or whatever) you have, then put the leaf in a large cheesecloth or strainer or something to brew. With a pot on a stove you could bring the water to a boil and then turn it down to just enough to keep the water where it needs to be.

However you end up doing it, you are probably going to have to choose your tea carefully and experiment a bit. Some teas are going to be better than others about brewing in such quantity, and you'll probably want to do some experiments on a smaller scale to get it just right.

Do you know what teas you're going to make, what you're going to use to brew them, and how you're going to keep/serve it? The specifics might spark some ideas.

Man.. 50 people! Even with 4oz cups, that's 200oz! I definitely don't envy you this task.

[fencerdenoctum]

I knew putting this in ITD would be best. You guys are awesome.

I agree with everyone, 50 people is a lot of tea. ABx hit it right on the nose as well. I'm using 4oz glass cups. Our college dining center has given me 4 large containers (which I think are normally used to keep coffee warm, and are going to be cleaned extremely well before use just in case) which will be dispensed into smaller carafes carried by people I've rooked into being servers. I'll be in the dining center a LOT between now and then, maybe I can steal some of the equipment to do a dry run of sorts to see how much of a hassle It will be. I've got more pots that I realized as well. To save time and sanity, I'll have the tea prepared before hand.

Just to satisfy curiositea, here are the teas I've selected. All are coming from Adagio.

Ceylon Sonata- I picked this one because it's flavor will be instantly recognized by my guests. Poor liptonites won't know what hit em.

Yunnan Jig- Yunnan is my absolute favorite tea. I also think it will be a great contrast to the Ceylon.

TKY- TKY was my first oolong, and I love the legend around it.

Sencha Premier- I must say I just picked it because everyone said to.

The goal of my little presentation called "The Cup of Humanity" is to display tea traditions around the globe and to have iconic teas of each variety. White teas were just to expensive for this , but I think I've made some good choices.

Fencer

[scruffmcgruff]

Hmm... This may be too much of a sacrifice this would be to your overall presentation, but perhaps you could brew one or two (say, the Ceylon and the TGY) en masse and brew the others afterward for those who are interested? I'm mostly concerned about how the sencha will come out when prepared in large quantities-- it's easy enough to screw up in small batches.

I guess this plan is hinging on not everyone being interested enough to try all of them, which is a bit pessimistic in itself (no offense intended, by the way), but I just thought I'd mention it.

[skywarrior]

I guess this plan is hinging on not everyone being interested enough to try all of them, which is a bit pessimistic in itself (no offense intended, by the way), but I just thought I'd mention it.

Well, it is a tea seminar. I would expect people to be a tad more adventurous there.

Overall I think he made good choices, but I too am concerned about the green. I think it's harder to have problems with blacks or even oolongs by comparison. Maybe a smaller amount of green?

Oh and I would scrub anything used for coffee. Gah! I will make the tea taste awful if you don't.