Water Temperature

Different teas taste better if they are made with the correct watertemperature. Many black, Puerh and Oolong teas taste great if you usenear boiling water. But Green, White and Yellow teas definitely tastebetter with water that is 70-80°C. But don’t let this worry you. Here are the modern and traditional ways to know what temperature your water is.

Should the water boil?

Water which is fully boiled becomes flat and stale, like food which isreheated many times. Boiling water de-oxygenates it. The higher thelevel of oxygen the more taste you will get. If you ever eat in Chinaor Japan you will notice that slurping food not only acceptable butencouraged. These ‘delicious noises’ as they are called, bring moreoxygen into the nose and mouth, allowing you to taste the food morefully. It is the same when you drink tea, the more oxygen in the water,(and the more you slurp) the more fully you will taste the flavour.

The Modern Way

If you are drinking a Black, Puerh or Oolong tea, boiling water can beused but we recommend that you take your kettle away from its powersource before it come to a rolling boil. This prevents the waterbecoming deoxygenated or flat.

The Traditional Way

Have you noticed that as your kettle boils the sound changes and the way the steam rises becomes faster an more intense?

1. As the water gets hotter tiny bubbles the size of a pin head start to rise to the surface and pop – these are called 'shrimp eyes' in Chinese. Lazy, slow moving wisps of steam arise and the kettle makes its first low humming sounds. This temperature (60-70 degrees) is perfect for the finest green teas.
2. As the water gets hotter, the bubbles grow to ‘crab eyes,’ which are half the size of marbles. Wisps of steam begin to rise vertically in a steady stream and the kettle starts to make popping sounds. This temperature is perfect for white, jasmine and green oolong teas as it is around 80 degrees.
3. When the bubbles become the size of marbles (fish eyes), the kettle makes stronger sounds and the steam rises in thick fast-moving columns the water has reached a temperature of 90-95°C and is perfect for oolong, puerh and black teas.
4. The final stage, which is not considered to be suitable for tea making, the kettle makes the sound of a raging torrent and the bubbles roll and swirl. This is traditionally called 'old man water' and is stale and de-oxygenated.