Get more of your tea the Eastern way!

Perhaps you've seen a small piece of teaware like this somewhere, full of tea leaves, to be covered with a lid. It's one of the ways to brew tea the Eastern way and it's called gaiwan. With that you can brew your tea completely differently, opening a whole new world of flavours you've never tasted in your tea!

First I need to tell you the differences between brewing tea the Eastern way and the Western way. Where the Western way tries to optimize all the flavours coming out of the leaf within one cup of tea, the Eastern way separates the high, middle and low notes, because let's face it: you can't really taste everything the tea has to offer with only one brew, as the flavours are extracting at different times. First come the light, sweet notes. Then come more fullbodied and stronger notes, and last come the bitter notes. The light floral sweet notes are being covered by the stronger notes when brewing the tea like we do in the Western countries.

So if you really want to bring out everything your tea has to offer: brew it the Eastern way!

The Western recipe resembles often something like this: 3g of tea leaves per mug (2 dl), brewing time approx. 1,5 -2 minutes. The temperature of water depends on the tea, everything from 60-95 degrees of Celcius.

The Eastern recipe is often something like this: 3-5g of tea per gaiwan (0,5-1 dl), brewing time approx. 20-40 seconds. To be brewed multiple times, the flavour changing after each brew. Every brew that follows will be a bit longer than the previous, and the temperature of the water is a couple of degrees higher every time.

If you were to brew the same tea leaves again that you've brewed the Western way, the taste would be flat and the tea hasn't a lot more to give.

We offer a small white porcelain gaiwan, which is the perfect way to start experimenting with your tea. Check it out here.