How to boil the water for your tea in the right way

I drink tea every day and I make my tea in the right way. It’s essential to know how to cook water for your tea. Not enough time to cook or overcook the water will affect the taste of the tea. An experienced tea drinker needs to know how to boil his/her water to preparing the tea in the right way.

Lu Yu’s ( Tang Dynasty) once wrote in his book “The Tea Bible”. “Once the water boils, the bubble will shape like a fish eye with a little sound, we called this the first boil; If the water shapes like linked pearls, we called this the second boil. When the water starts to wave, we call this the final boil.” Any time after those three, we consider overcooked water and you can’t make tea with this water any more.

Zhang Yuan ( Ming Dynasty) wrote in his book “The Record of Tea”, “There are three major ways and fifteen minor ways to tell about the water for your tea. Shape, sound, and steam are considered to be the 3 major ones. Shape is from inside of the water. You can hear the sound without near the water. Steam can be checked quickly by vision. Water bubble shapes like shrimp eye, crab eye, fish eye or linked pearl means the water is still not ready. Once the water start to have wave, then it’s ready. When you first hear the boiling sound, or higher pitch and even vibrating sound, the water is still not ready. When these sound has been gone, then it’s ready. When the steam first appear, or appears more, floating above the pot, it’s not ready. When the steam goes straight all the way up, then it’s ready.

How have I cook my water? To cook the water, you need to put the stove on high heat. Pour water into the pot with cover on. Once you hear the little boiling sound, it’s time to take the cover off and check the water on shape, sound and steam.

Warm your tea cup once with small amount of boiling water, remove the small amount of the water. Put dried tea leaves in, pour the rest of the hot water in, put the cover on. Wait till the tea leave expand and sink to the bottom of the cup.

Now you can RELAX! Open the tea cup cover. Have a small sip. Enjoy your tea and rest of the Year!


Copyright by Huan's Tai Chi 2009