What is water taste?
Water taste is generally adopted to describe the taste of tea infusion, referring to that you can obviously feel the separation of tea taste and water, without integration, that is, when you take a sip, tea is tea, and water is water.
There are several possibilities to cause this separation of tea and water.
01
Stuffy water taste and flat water taste appearing in the tea processing process
Stuffy water taste
Stuffy water taste is caused by the reason that fresh tea leaves are piled in heaps and are not spread out to be cooled timely, or before fixation, in order to increase the temperature of tea leaves to promote pile fermentation, fine manipulation of green tea leaves and water removing are not carried out sufficiently.
Flat water taste
Flat water taste refers to that the tea is tasteless and insipid and is mainly caused by the reasons of coarse and old fresh tea leaves are, excessive withering and water removing and improper rolling.
When the tea has these two tastes, you need to be cautious when purchase.
02
Separation phenomenon of tea and water occurring in the brewing process
Some of the "water taste" is caused in the tea making process and has nothing to do with tea processing, while the tea soup gives us the feeling of separation of tea and water. It may be caused by the following factors:
1.Too hard water quality
The hardness of water can affect the solubility of the components in the tea. The solubility is high in soft water, resulting in strong tea taste. Hard water contains more calcium and magnesium ions and minerals, resulting in low solubility, so the tea taste is light.
2.Too low water temperature
The solubility of tea is also directly proportional to the water temperature. If the water temperature for making tea is too low, the components in the tea is low in solubility, resulting in insufficient tea taste and strong water taste. For example, Handmade Wuyi Wild Artisan Lapsang Souchong Whole Leaf Loose Black Tea should be brewed at the water temperature of at least 90℃ to make sure that most of the functional components of the tea are dissolved in the water to produce a fantastic taste.
3.Improper water injection
If the fixed-point water injection speed is too low, the tea components can not be fully dissolved and mixed with water, resulting in separation of tea and water. The water injection rate can be increased appropriately, or the water injection mode can be changed for improvement.
03
Spring tea processed in rainy weather
Spring tea is always processed in the rainy weather, resulting in water taste. The phenomenon of heavy water taste is prone to occur when there is more rainwater in the year.
04
Tea affected by damp
If the tea is not thoroughly dried in the tea processing process, is processed during rainy days or is stored under a wet environment, strong water taste can also be caused. This situation will get better after a period of time of storage in a dry environment.
05
Tea awakened insufficiently
Sleeping or dust-laden tea are awakened by making contact with the air and water to re-coruscate the essence of tea so as to facilitate brewing and drinking, and this process is called "tea awaking".
The tea awaking methods varies from different kinds of tea:
When brewing Dark Tea, Oolong Tea or Black Tea, just take out the tea in storage and put the tea into the brewing utensil with boiling water at about 100℃ to awaken tea.
When brewing Green Tea, White Tea or Yellow Tea with relatively high tenderness, just take out the tea in cold storage and put the tea into hot brewing utensils with boiling water at about 85℃ to awaken tea.
Tea awaking plays a decisive role in the performance of tea's internal quality during the whole brewing process and has a direct influence on the brewing later. If tea is awakened insufficiently, the first several tea infusions will have a strong water taste.
No matter which of the above possibilities will lead to the occurrence of strong water taste in the tea making process. Once understanding the reasons, you can make an adjustment and improvement accordingly.
