by D.O. Rothenberg | Jul 31, 2020 | Best Infusion Practices, Tasting & Quality Assessment, Tea Education, Tea Plant Biology & Cultivation
Polyphenols, being larger-weight molecules, require more of kick in the rump than amino acids do in order to extract them out of the leaf, and into the cup. The extra umph can be hotter water, longer infusion time, or more leaf agitation (stirring, prodding, poking,...
by D.O. Rothenberg | Jul 30, 2020 | Best Infusion Practices, Tasting & Quality Assessment, Tea Education, Tea Plant Biology & Cultivation
If steeping instructions on the packaging call for 2 minutes at 80°C/175°F … why? How did they arrive at that recipe? Why not 1 minute… or 5 minutes? And what about Gongfu Cha with many small infusions… is the first infusion different from the 10th? We hold an innate...
by D.O. Rothenberg | Oct 4, 2019 | Best Infusion Practices, Effects on Human Health, Tasting & Quality Assessment, Tea Education
Warm tea, warm heart Researchers from the world-renowned, world-class institution, University of Colorado at Boulder (my alma mater. Go Buffs) conducted an experiment which found that participants judged others differently depending on the temperature of the beverage...
by D.O. Rothenberg | Oct 3, 2019 | Best Infusion Practices, Effects on Human Health, Tasting & Quality Assessment, Tea Education
“Caution: Contents Hot!” The ubiquitous warning label reminding us that our hot things are hot. As the story goes, an ill-fated woman discovered the hard way in a McDonalds parking lot in 1994 that hot coffee spilled on the lap causes burns. On the one side,...