Steeping Tea: Some Like it (not too) Hot

Making tea is a simple equation. Leaves, hot water, a few minutes, voila. And while better leaves generally brew better tea, water temperature and quality are often overlooked, but critical factors, for producing best possible results. A few equipment manufacturers are innovating in this field and making the increasingly popular beverage even easier to enjoy, and profit from.

Specialty teas are flooding the market, bringing epic-sounding names like Golden Monkey, Dragon Pearls, and Iron Goddess to the vernacular. But a stellar tea menu is only part of the formula.

In an ideal tea world, freshly drawn oxygen-rich and mineral-balanced cold water is brought to precisely the appropriate temperature for extracting the desired flavor and aroma the specific tea being steeped. For full expression of a variety of styles, tea requires a range of temperatures from mildly hot to boiling, or about 150 to 212F.

More often, however, water for our tea is borrowed from the 180ish degree spigot of a coffee brewer or office water dispenser, hot enough to cook the nuance right out of some delicate white or green teas, but not hot enough to get anything much more than colored water from what should be a robust black tea. All that potential, lukewarm results.

There are some exciting new products on the market to remedy this. Curtis, FETCO, and Adagio Teas each have innovative solutions to enable the utmost enjoyment, and profitability, of your tea menu.

Adagio Teas has a new electric kettle that heats water to a specific temperature in a matter of minutes. The new VarieTEA water kettle has precise settings for all tea varieties, making it easy to achieve a water temperature that is ideal for your tea of choice. Preset temperatures include 150, 165, 180, 195 and 212F. It also adds a keep warm feature that will maintain a selected temperature for a half hour. This 57oz stainless gem is a must have for tea connoisseurs.

If your demand for hot water warrants higher volume dispensers, FETCO has just begun production of its TOD (temperature on demand) Water Boiler, model HWB-2105. More sleek in appearance that we're used to from these utilitarian manufacturers, this 5 gallon tower dispenses water at four preset temperatures from a single silicone tap, boastfully “saving money, equipment, labor, and space.”

Of the large beverage equipment manufacturers, Wilbur Curtis has been most closely dialed into the tea community, sponsoring and participating in events such as the annual World Tea Expo in Las Vegas. They have a variety of tea specific machines, but this new one caught our attention for its unique aerating feature. The Curits G3 Water Boiler, model WB5GT, provides precise control of temperature and aeration. This tower is capable of dispensing large volumes of water at a temperature range of 140-210ºF, and utilizes an agitation pump to keep water consistently oxygenated- a huge asset to improving tea extraction and flavor.

The potential to profit from a specialty tea program has never been more accessible than it is right now. Having the right tools to maximize that opportunity will boost your credibility, your sales, and leave a most favorable impression on your tea thirsty guests. May the Iron Goddess have mercy on you.