The Ways to brew Japanese tea

Brewing loose leaf green tea is a bit tricky but you can master as long as you take into consideration the aspects that can have a positive or negative outcome on the brewed tea.

You need right water for Japanese tea

Selecting water is absolutely important! The authentic taste of Japanese tea will not be achieved with poor water selection. We strongly advice every customer to find soft water to brew Japanese tea. These types of water can have a negative impact on the delicate taste and aroma of Japanese tea, so we do not recommend them at all:

• Tap water.

• Hard water.

• Distilled water (Water hardness should not be too low.)

We recommend soft water with fewer minerals:

• Using Brita (Brita can get rid of calcium and magnesium.)

• Mineral water with less calcium and magnesium (Still water of Waitrose and Volvic should be good.)

How much tea leaves and water should I put in the Kyusu?

Basically, Japanese tea can be brewed in a way that suits your taste. Also it might have slight different from what kind of tea leaves you choose. These are general tips for the first brew:

• Gyokuro (3g tea leaves for 40-50℃, 30ml water)

• Kabusecha (3-5g tea leaves for 60-70℃, 100-150ml water)

• Jo Sencha (3-5g tea leaves for 70℃, 100-150ml water)

• Sencha (3-5g tea leaves80-90℃, 100-150ml water)

• Bancha / Hojicha (4-5g tea leaves, boiling water, 100-150ml water)

• Genmaicha (4-5g tea leaves, boiling water or depends on tea leaves, 100-150ml water)

After the first brew, it's better to brew the tea with the temperature of the hot water a bit more than the first time. You can enjoy sweetness and umami from first brew and strongness and bitterness from second or third one.

Let's see the example for extracting Sencha

1. Pour boiling water in the empty cups (3 cups in this case).

2. Let it sit for a while to reduce the water temperature (around 80 degrees) and warm the cups.

3. Add the tea leaves in Kyusu. (10g for 3 cups)

4. Pour the hot water gently from the teacups and wait for 60 seconds.

5. While extracting Sencha (or any other Japanese tea), do not shake or swirl the teapot, as this can cause the tea to become bitter. Pour it into the cups gently, filling each cup bit by bit.

6. Repeat until the very last little drop has been poured. This will help to ensure the taste and quantity of the tea are the same in each cup.

How many times can I brew the Japanese tea?

Did you know that once brewed, you can still get even more flavor out of your green tea leaves? Sencha is especially the tea you can feel different taste each brewing.

You can still get about 3 steeps out of them, in general. When you’re ready to re-steep, simply follow the brewing steps outlined above, but raise the temperature of the water a bit for each subsequent infusion. Also it's better to open the lid of Kyusu after brewing once to avoid to steam them more.