How to brew our tea

When drinking tea by yourself, there is nothing wrong with following your heart.
However, no matter what grade the tea is, proper brewing techniques can help
the quality of tea to be brought into full play. When hosting friends or having a ceremony session, serving good tea in a proper setting is definitely a crowd-pleaser.

Although most tea drinkers are not professional tea masters and do not need to conduct each step with strict criteria, Cha Moods made a list of tea hacks and tricks that guide you into your unique experience with each cup of tea.

Teaware Choice

There is no strict rule when it comes to which type of teaware is the best; it is heavily influenced by your personal taste. There are some rules of thumbs though :

• Use glass teawares

• for brewing green tea. This allows you to observe the beauty of tea leaves as they unfold and dance up and down in the water. It also lets you appreciate the color of the soup and the shape of the leaves, which are important criteria for good green teas.

• Using porcelain Gaiwan/ teapot 

• is suitable for brewing tea with high aroma, such as Oolong Tea and White Tea. The dense structure of porcelain makes sure that aroma is preserved and you can smell different layers of it from the lid, the bottom of the tea cup, the soup and the steeped leaves.

• The purple clay pot/ceramic teapot

• is very suitable for brewing various type of Black tea, Pu'er Tea, etc. But do not use it to brew green tea as most green teas are relatively delicate and cannot withstand soaking in high temperature while the heat preservation performance of purple clay pots are relatively good, thus affecting the fragrance of green tea. It is also a good practice to use a different clay pot for one big category of tea as its material is more breathable and thus the teapot absorbs the tea flavors in itself over time.

Water, Temperature, Ratio, Time

These are the 4 most important elements. Different teas use different water temperatures and different brewing times. You can find our recommendations on the product pages of our collections.

• How to measure the water temperature without a thermometer?

• After the water boils, it takes appr. 5 min with open lid for it to reach 85 degrees. In places where the temperature is lower, the time should be shortened appropriately.

• Fixed water to tea ratio?

• According to the size of the gaiwan and teapot, put a certain amount of tea leaves into them for making tea. Generally speaking, the ratio of tea to water is 1:20-80. The lower bound is mostly used to brew tea GongFu Cha style, which only lasts for several seconds per brew. If you like to drink stronger/weaker tea, you can always throw more tea leaves/add more water. This of course also differ greatly for each tea type. Please refer to our product pages for details as well for this.

This is it for now! What we want to conclude is that tea drinking can be a very fluid or rigid experience depending on your mood of the day! The next step is of course to choose teaware according to your own aesthetic preference. Cha Moods have an eye-pleasing selection for you and we hope that you enjoy them as much as we do!