10 minutes. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. That’s how long different sources say tea should be oversteeped before going into a zeroproof drink. Normal steeping shouldn’t be over 5 minutes.
Not having made my tea flights to test the whys of oversteeped tea I’ve been learning about, I took it there for these New England Teas. 12 hours.
I made one black tea and one yerba mate tea with 8-9g of each tea, 354ml of boiling water in each glass, and 12 hours of wait time for both.
Ignorant of tea and the importance of established steeping rules, I put The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea on my Amazon wishlist. Even though I had a hard time not liking these New England Teas, I’m thinking my palate’s not yet sophisticated enough to know better.
New England Iced Tea from Alyssa Gusenoff’s Margarita Mama
- Blueberry juice
- Decaffeinated iced tea (I used black and yerba mate)
Equipment: bar spoon
Me: The one mixed with black tea left my mouth a bit dry; the one with yerba mate smelled like the tea. The fullness of the juice’s flavor in the black tea version was almost too mild; but it was almost too juice-y in the yerba mate mix to be called a mocktail.
GJ: I wouldn’t know the difference between steeped and oversteeped tea. But the black tea mix had a nice balance of herbal and tart with a slight sweetness. I got a little more tartness in the yerba mate one, but no complaints.
Another Round? One with each tea daily for GJ. I’ll take a daily with black tea and a weekly with yerba mate.