How to brew Gyokuro

Traditional brewing guide (2 cups)

Pour boiling water into the teacups you will use. This will cool the water, help you measure the amount of water you will need and warm up the teacups.

Tip: Pouring hot water into a cup/teapot will reduce the temperature by 5-10°C each time. For Gyokuro, it is the best at 50°C, so you may move hot water between the cup and pot a couple of times. DO NOT ADD COLD WATER to cool down hot water. Cold tap water may add a smell of chlorine and spoil the delicate flavor of tea.

While waiting for the water to cool further, place 2-3 tea spoon of green tea leaves in the teapot.

Pour the hot water from the tea cups into the teapot and place the lid on.

Wait for 2 minutes (Recommended to use timer for better results)

Pour the tea from the teapot into the cups. Pour a little tea at a time into each cup going back and forth so that the colour, flavour and amount will be even.

Shake the teapot up and down gently near the end and try to get the last drop since this is the most tasty drop.

After pouring the tea, lightly hit the side of tea pot to move the wet tea leaf to the centre of the teapot.

Slightly open the lid of teapot so that the wet tea leaf is not steamed completely. You can enjoy the perfect tea now.

You can have 2nd and 3rd infusions with the same procedure. For the second infusion, brewing time is less. You can wait for 30 seconds or less. First serve tastes sweet with Amino-acid. Second serve contains more catechins and you may feel it is slightly bitter than the first serve.

Why cool the hot water?

Tea is science. Different components comes out at different tempareture.

At high tempareture, astringency components, Catechins are extracted and they give bitter taste
At lower tempareture L-teanine is extracted and it gives sweet and rich taste

How to store

Once you have opened the package, keep the tea in an airtight container or canister and stored it cool and dry place. Avoid moisture, sunlight, heat and strong odors.