Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Mesh fineness of tea strainers and the taste of sencha 2



This is a continuation of yesterday’s post.

Well, here is the result…


I did NOT find much difference. They are all clear in color and similar in taste. So, my assumption was not correct. When I did this test I didn’t move or shake the teapots before pouring. I gently poured tea into the cups. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get big difference among these three.


So, for the second brewing I moved the teapots in a circular motion to agitate the water and leaves.


Based the result, the difference was slightly more apparent than the first brewing. But the fineness of mesh didn’t affect the taste as obvious as I expected. I think this is because the tea was good futsu-sencha, so it didn’t have many fine pieces of leaves. The result would have been different with fukamushi-sencha. However, I found a slight difference among these teas through these two brewing. Without much surprise, fine pieces of leaves that slipped through the strainers were finer with the stainless strainer and bigger with that of the regular-mesh strainer. The color was the darkest with Teapot C and lightest with B. I don’t know why B got the lightest. Despite the color, C had the mildest taste. The milder taste was affected by the materials of the teapots, not by the finenesse of the strainer, I guess. I assume the rough-grained texture of the material had something to do with the taste.

What I can say today is that the impact to the taste is limited by the fineness of tea strainer, and I think you don't have to concern too much the fineness of strainer for futsu-sencha. I want to try this test with fukamushi-sencha next time. (^-^)

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