A tea friend asked a very common and very common question, but many people may not understand it: “After making the tea in a teapot or a bowl, should the lid be closed or lifted? It’s tangled!”
In fact, regardless of whether it is a bowl or a teapot, when it comes to the issue of uncovering or covering the lid, it is often divided into two groups, one is the “uncovering group” and the other is the “covering group”, and the two groups of tea friends often hold one each. Words are often red-faced in contention.
Reasons for uncovering
The first is to remove odors. In the eyes of uncovered pie tea lovers, opening the lid after the soup is made can let out some of the green flavor in the tea and make the tea aroma more pure.
Second, they believe that opening the lid will make the tea more resistant to foaming.
This school of tea friends believes that after soaking in hot water, tea leaves will quickly release the contents. If it becomes stuffy at this time, the aroma components will continue to release, so after the soup is out, the lid should be lifted to cool down, so that the next brewing will better stimulate the aroma and taste of the tea, and make the tea more resistant to foaming.
Finally, uncovering will not suffocate the tea. Tea enthusiasts believe that after the lid is closed, the high temperature remaining in the teapot or tureen will smother the tea, especially the famous tea with delicate buds and leaves. Once it becomes stuffy, the taste will no longer be fresh. Therefore, it must be uncovered. cover.
It seems that these reasons are fine, but there are unquestionable reasons for tea lovers who advocate putting the lid on.
Reasons to cover
First of all, the lid can prevent the tea from losing its fragrance. Tea friends who advocate opening the lid believe that opening the lid can give off the peculiar smell of tea, but the tea friends who advocate closing the lid say that putting the lid on will better preserve the aroma of the tea, and it will smell better when the lid is smelled.
Secondly, the lid can allow the tea’s contents to be leached faster. When brewing coarse old tea leaves, cover the lid to keep the bowl at a high temperature, so that the contents of the tea leaves are released faster and the taste is more mellow.
Finally, a good tea is not afraid of stuffiness, and the one who is afraid of stuffiness is not a good tea. A real good tea can withstand the test of a sauna. If the taste changes to tea after stuffiness, it means that the quality of the tea itself is not good.
Both sides seem to make sense, so when making tea, should the lid be closed or uncovered?
In fact, on this issue, it is really not suitable for a one-size-fits-all approach, but should be dealt with in specific situations.
The delicate tea leaves need to be uncovered
After the tea leaves are out of the soup, if the lid is covered, the bottom of the leaf will still maintain a higher temperature. If you brew more delicate, famous black tea, green tea, or Baihao Yinzhen, the tea will be suffocated when the lid is closed, and the taste of the next brew will become bitter and not fresh. Therefore, it is best to brew this type of tea. Uncover the lid.
When brewing Shengpu, Dianhong, White Peony or Tieguanyin with a light-roasting fragrance, and the lightly roasted Phoenix Dancong and other teas with mature buds and high fragrance, the lid can be placed diagonally after the soup, leaving a gap, so that both The aroma will not be lost due to the sudden temperature drop after uncovering, and the tea will not be suffocated and affect the taste.
Aged tea can be covered with a lid
For rough black tea, aged Pu’er or Shoumei and other old white teas, the teapot or tureen can be covered after the soup is out. In this way, the continuous high temperature in the teapot or tureen can continuously awaken the contents of the old tea.
Of course, the prerequisite for covering the lid is that these teas have no peculiar smell. If the taste is not particularly pure, it can be properly uncovered.
Cover the lid when the tea leaves are weak
In fact, no matter what kind of tea it is, as the number of brewing increases, the taste will gradually fade. Therefore, in the next few brews, the brewing time can be appropriately extended, and the tea can be properly stuffed, so that the contents of the tea can be released as much as possible without uncovering.
Of course, the above suggestions should be flexibly adapted to individual needs.
If your requirements for making tea are not as meticulous as possible, you don’t have to be too entangled. If you really have a “careful” level of making tea, you can try the above suggestions several times, and then find the one that suits you best. Oh the way.
