Photo Essay: The Leaf’s Gift
Join us on a journey of crafting the perfect cup of tea with this rather unique modern take on brewing. I have spent many years drinking tea and always done my best to find the best ways to bring tea brewing to the modern era. I grew up in Ürümqi, China and fell in love with the art, simplicity, and taste of good tea. Through this series of photos I will show you how I prefer to brew my tea in pursuit of achieving the perfect cup of traditional tea.
In preparation for a quiet evening of warmth and rest — collect your French press, loose leaf tea, mug(s), 1 tbsp measuring spoon, and water heater.
Dry leaves hold the scent to tomorrow’s calm — tea is certainly an art with many different interpretations, but I typically suggest using 1 tbsp per cup of tea desired.
The tea leaves waiting to bloom — it’s important to make sure that your tea leaves settle uniformly to ensure maximum contact with the boiling water when added.
The energy from the water ready to be consumed by the leaves — the goal is to have your water just on the cusp of boiling for use in the perfect cup of tea.
A stream of heat brings the tea to life — as you can see, we have a nice uniform dispersion of leaves allowing for maximum exposure to the boiling water and efficient use of our leaves.
Patience becomes part of the recipe — each breed of tea has a different steep time, but 3–5 minutes is always the sweet spot. We’ll steep for 3 minutes today.
Silent transformation fills the glass with warmth — we’re using a white tea named Bai Hao Yin Zhen, otherwise known as Silver Needle, which keeps our hue rather light instead of a deep dark.
The press divides the liquid from the leaf — once you have waited 3–5 minutes, it is important to separate your leaves from your water as soon as possible to prevent unnecessary bitterness. Tea steeped longer than 5 minutes will never extract more flavor and only serves to increase bitterness.
A stream of gold flows into the cup — when pouring tea it is best practice to allow for bubbles and ripples to form from a further pour.
The gift of the leaf is finally complete — our perfect cup of tea is complete, offering us peace, pleasure, and plenty of enjoyment.