This rings very true if you happen to’re utilizing tea luggage as an alternative of loose-leaf herbs. McBride explains that once you crush up herbs to kind the small items that go into luggage, you improve their floor space and expose them to extra oxygen, which may boring their taste. “It is a lot much less potent due to the way it’s saved,” McBride says of natural tea in a bag.
Whereas it may possibly rely upon the kind of tea (“true teas” like black, inexperienced, and oolong every have their very own distinctive steep instances), McBride says you may wish to let most natural brews sit for quarter-hour. This could go away sufficient time for the antioxidant-rich polyphenols, the plant compounds that make natural teas so wholesome, to fully come by way of in your cup.
After McBride inspired me to experiment with totally different steep instances, I took to my kitchen and made two an identical cups of chai rooibos: one sat for two minutes, the opposite 15. The distinction between a fast dip and an extended steep grew to become clear instantly.