Could you try another pic that’s further away, darker, and blurrier? Thanks 🤭
lemony_dewdrops
The tea leaves are rolled into little balls. They unfurl in the hot water while steeping.
Ok-Thing-2222
That’s what my loose black tea looks like! My can says gunpowder on it–my question is I never know exactly how much of it to use for one cup!
TurbulentWillow1025
Tea.
Curious_kendra
A lot of teas of processed with rolling as part of it. This is normal.
Money-Ad300
Its just the organic part..
ninabijou
It’s produced by the CTC method, which is used for a lesser grade of tea and results in a stronger brew. From Wikipedia: Crush, tear, curl (sometimes cut, tear, curl) is a method of processing tea leaves into black tea in which the leaves are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of sharp teeth that crush, tear, and curl the tea into small, hard pellets. This replaces the final stage of orthodox tea manufacture, in which the leaves are rolled into strips. Tea produced using this method is generally called CTC tea or mamri tea.
HighColdDesert
Those little balls are called CTC tea. Black teabags in the US are mostly CTC or a mix of CTC and leaf. In India, brands like Red Label and Taj Mahal are mostly CTC, and work best for simmered Indian milk tea (unlike pure leaf tea which tends to go bitter if boiled).
ETA: Oops, after I posted this comment I saw that someone else had given this reply already.
plutopyatnadtsat_
its tea. more tea in your tea. thats 60% more tea per tea!
CardiologistSalt8607
Sorry, those are mine
eratus23
You’re not going to believe this…
BeersNbrews
That’s what good tea looks like. Not the ground up powder you get in tea bags.
Hopalong_Manboobs
Depending on processing, some tea leaves will end up curled or balled up like that. There’s even a popular Assam tea/masala chai base known as “Assam CTC” or “crush-tear-curl” which turns all the leaves into solid spheres like these.
CesarMillan_Official
Also tea
Trivi_13
Don’t believe all the “gunpowder” hype.
Someone didn’t clean their stash!
kaya-jamtastic
Each time you add water you release different flavors. You typically won’t want to leave the leaves to steep for too long. For many teas you might rinse them first — pour boiling water over them and then immediately pour it off, which is said to carry some of the most bitter taste with it. After that, I typically let it steep for a few minutes or so and then pour it into cups. How long I let it steep for depends on how hot the water is, the tea itself, personal preference, and occasionally, whether I’ve forgotten about it in another room. If the water is cooler or if I’ve already done a few steeps then I’ll let it sit longer. With a good dark puerh, I’ve sometimes poured hot water in it and let it sit steep all night to get a nutty, earthy, brew that will pack an espresso-like punch
I don’t typically try to keep the water at an optimum brewing temperature. Though I might heat it up again if it’s gotten really cool. It depends on how quickly I’m drinking the tea
I have a kettle that has different temperature markers. It’s not fancy enough to specify a specific temperature, but it has markings for white tea, green tea, oolong, coffee, and boiling/black tea
I have a larger teapot that my Chinese grandmother had and sometimes brew there. Usually though, for loose leaf teas, I’ll brew in a more gongfu style tea set which is perfect for a single person or sharing
Here’s more information on the gongfu style (which I don’t follow exactly but is a useful reference because I’ve only picked up some tips from the generations that have preceded me and were really into tea): https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/s/d3f8uotUxk
I would say my approach is a “bastardized” gongfu style that I picked up from Chinese relatives and tea shop sellers in Singapore. I like to wing it. The process is fairly forgiving; sometimes I’ll end up with slightly bitter or weak (but still potable) tea. Feel free to experiment and find out what you like
Note that, for English- or Irish-style black tea, I usually get it to at least coffee temperature, don’t rinse it, and let it steep for awhile if I want it with milk. If I want chai, I buy tea from an Indian grocer and boil it with spices for a while like my friend from Mumbai taught me to do. Different teas require different processes. I’d say the rolled pearl shape of your particular loose leaf suggests it would lend itself to multiple steeps
ResponseOk7944
cut tear and curl broken pekoe 1
Jim_Nills_Mustache
72RangersFan
So I’m guessing you don’t put sugar in it and pour it over ice. Who’d’a thought.
20 Comments
Tea. It’s tea in your tea
Could you try another pic that’s further away, darker, and blurrier? Thanks 🤭
The tea leaves are rolled into little balls. They unfurl in the hot water while steeping.
That’s what my loose black tea looks like! My can says gunpowder on it–my question is I never know exactly how much of it to use for one cup!
Tea.
A lot of teas of processed with rolling as part of it. This is normal.
Its just the organic part..
It’s produced by the CTC method, which is used for a lesser grade of tea and results in a stronger brew. From Wikipedia: Crush, tear, curl (sometimes cut, tear, curl) is a method of processing tea leaves into black tea in which the leaves are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of sharp teeth that crush, tear, and curl the tea into small, hard pellets. This replaces the final stage of orthodox tea manufacture, in which the leaves are rolled into strips. Tea produced using this method is generally called CTC tea or mamri tea.
Those little balls are called CTC tea. Black teabags in the US are mostly CTC or a mix of CTC and leaf. In India, brands like Red Label and Taj Mahal are mostly CTC, and work best for simmered Indian milk tea (unlike pure leaf tea which tends to go bitter if boiled).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_tear,_curl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_tear,_curl) for more about CTC tea.
ETA: Oops, after I posted this comment I saw that someone else had given this reply already.
its tea. more tea in your tea. thats 60% more tea per tea!
Sorry, those are mine
You’re not going to believe this…
That’s what good tea looks like. Not the ground up powder you get in tea bags.
Depending on processing, some tea leaves will end up curled or balled up like that. There’s even a popular Assam tea/masala chai base known as “Assam CTC” or “crush-tear-curl” which turns all the leaves into solid spheres like these.
Also tea
Don’t believe all the “gunpowder” hype.
Someone didn’t clean their stash!
Each time you add water you release different flavors. You typically won’t want to leave the leaves to steep for too long. For many teas you might rinse them first — pour boiling water over them and then immediately pour it off, which is said to carry some of the most bitter taste with it. After that, I typically let it steep for a few minutes or so and then pour it into cups. How long I let it steep for depends on how hot the water is, the tea itself, personal preference, and occasionally, whether I’ve forgotten about it in another room. If the water is cooler or if I’ve already done a few steeps then I’ll let it sit longer. With a good dark puerh, I’ve sometimes poured hot water in it and let it sit steep all night to get a nutty, earthy, brew that will pack an espresso-like punch
I don’t typically try to keep the water at an optimum brewing temperature. Though I might heat it up again if it’s gotten really cool. It depends on how quickly I’m drinking the tea
I have a kettle that has different temperature markers. It’s not fancy enough to specify a specific temperature, but it has markings for white tea, green tea, oolong, coffee, and boiling/black tea
I have a larger teapot that my Chinese grandmother had and sometimes brew there. Usually though, for loose leaf teas, I’ll brew in a more gongfu style tea set which is perfect for a single person or sharing
Here’s more information on the gongfu style (which I don’t follow exactly but is a useful reference because I’ve only picked up some tips from the generations that have preceded me and were really into tea):
https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/s/d3f8uotUxk
I would say my approach is a “bastardized” gongfu style that I picked up from Chinese relatives and tea shop sellers in Singapore. I like to wing it. The process is fairly forgiving; sometimes I’ll end up with slightly bitter or weak (but still potable) tea. Feel free to experiment and find out what you like
Note that, for English- or Irish-style black tea, I usually get it to at least coffee temperature, don’t rinse it, and let it steep for awhile if I want it with milk. If I want chai, I buy tea from an Indian grocer and boil it with spices for a while like my friend from Mumbai taught me to do. Different teas require different processes. I’d say the rolled pearl shape of your particular loose leaf suggests it would lend itself to multiple steeps
cut tear and curl broken pekoe 1
So I’m guessing you don’t put sugar in it and pour it over ice. Who’d’a thought.