How To Brew Loose Leaf Tea

[Music] hello and welcome to t-talks my name is sid and i'm the creator of roots holistic which is a lifestyle brand promoting mindful living and teatox is an intentional space for conversation around mindful living healing and liberation and today we are in the kitchen and i wanted to show you uh how to brew loose leaf tea so a facet of root holistic is roots tea blends and i created roots tea blends to teach people about how tea can be this grounding tool to bring us back to the present moment and so today i just wanted to talk to you all about how i go about making loose leaf tea when i started drinking tea with my grandmother when i was younger we would use tea bags we would microwave a cup of water in the microwave and then pop the tea bag in there and that was it and it was wonderful and as i got older and started to learn more about tea i learned that these tea bags they really have very finely chopped up tea leaves or herbs which really limits the benefit that you can get out of your tea and so i love loose leaf tea because you're getting more of the full leaves and the full herbs and flowers and so that's going to give you bolder flavor and it's going to give you more of the medicinal benefits of those teas and herbs let's go over what we might need starting off with the tea today we're going to be brewing one of roots tea blends open hearts it's one of my favorites it has lavender rose black tea and rooibos tea you're also going to need a vessel that you're going to brew tea out of today i'm going to be using a teapot you can also use a cup if that works for you you'll need something to steep with one of my favorites is using a mesh strainer like this you can also use tea sachets that are going to look like your tea bag but you actually fill it yourself and then a tea cup a spoon to stir with a teaspoon [Music] honey if you like a little bit of sweetness and a tea timer or your phone now if you're looking to do a single serving an eight ounce cup of tea you'll probably use one to two teaspoons of tea if you have a pot like i do and i will drink a whole pot of tea myself but a pot is also really nice to share with friends you'll use two to three teaspoons and maybe even four so you'll use a little bit more for your pot than you do for your eight ounce cup one thing to remember when you are using your loose leaf tea is you want to make sure that the blend if it's a blend is shaken up um because there's lots of different contents in here and you want to make sure that you're getting all of those for your cup or for your pot so i'm going to use about three heapings and then once you have your pot or your cup all ready you're going to boil some water you can use the stove you can use the microwave my preference right now is an electronic tea kettle so you just flip that switch and we want to brew our tea at a water that is boiling okay so while we're waiting for that tea to boil we're going to talk a little bit about steep times because they differ and before we even talk about that we have to talk about the difference between tea and herbs so tea is from a specific plant the camellia sinensis plant that means your black tea your oolong tea your green tea your white tea all of that is coming from the same plant the difference is once it's harvested and the oxidation process of those different teas along with the location from which the tea is from the camellia sinensis plant it does burn in hot water which is why your time is important to pay attention to it's important to be mindful of with herbs you have a little bit more liberty you're not necessarily going to burn the herbs if they stay in the water over the certain amount of time if you've had a bitter cup of tea or a cup of tea that did not taste great most likely it was burned okay and so today the base of the tea that we're using the open heart is black tea and for black tea you want to steep that around three to five minutes and let that five minute be a hard cut if you're brewing green tea i like to brew that around three minutes so a little bit less and if i'm brewing herbal an herbal blend really so no tea is involved i will steep that for five or maybe even a little bit longer if i'm really trying to get a strong brew out of it so let me get some of this water you want to make sure that the water covers the contents of the tea and then once you have the water in there if you have your pot you're gonna cap it off so that it has all of that steam too steep and then you want to start your timer so i'm using a little timer here all right and now we wait so i like to take this opportunity to make it a mindful moment that's a new practice for me because sometimes i think five minutes and i'm like oh i can get something else done in between the time that i'm steeping my tea and more often than not i forget about it and i end up burning my tea so i'm getting into the practice of staying here staying present with my tea and really using it as an opportunity to check in it's just noticing how my body is feeling and me noticing where my thoughts have been throughout the day feeling my feet on the floor and finding my breath [Music] if you practice this mindfulness practice while the tea is brewing then you will be right on time for that timer that five minute mark or that three minute mark so that you're ready to remove the tea from the water very important so we don't want to leave the basket in the water because that is how you will get your burnt tea and then we'll move on to kind of our final steps again if you like to add a little bit of sweetness i sometimes when i just am craving that sweet a little bit of honey honey and a tea is perfect for me and you really don't want a lot we're not trying to make the tea sweet we're really trying to add just a little bit of sweetness to enhance the flavors of the tea we'll go ahead and get a little bit of that honey in the cup i like to put it in before the water and that way the water helps to break down the honey it's easy to stir up and then we will mindfully pour this hot tea into your cup [Music] then we stir it up and there you have it how to brew loose-leaf tea [Music] thank you so much for joining me for this tea talk i hope that you found it informational as always t-talks are going to be released on fridays and if you found this video helpful please subscribe to our channel and until next time stay safe stay healthy and be well [Music] you

Channel: Roots Holistic

Views: 21,060

Keywords: Tea, how to make tea, mindfulness, roots tea blends, loose leaf tea, rootsrva, roots holistic, perfect cup of tea

Id: JJ-hS4KVM4I

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021