Don Mei: Hey teaheads! This is Don from Mei
Leaf. In this video: How To Super-cool Brew
Green Tea. In this video I'm gonna be showing
you my favorite way to make the most refreshing
iced green tea possible. Let's go. By the
end of this video you are going to know the
perfect way to make the most luxurious iced
green tea possible for the summer. It's summer
outside, but all of my neighbors have decided
to do their gardening today. So it's a chorus
of lawn mowers, so you're going to have to
picture me on a hot beach, or in the countryside,
and get ready, because this tea is delicious.
In the last video I did I showed you how to
do Kuri Dashi style brewing - or "ice brewing"
; a Japanese style of brewing to make a really
refreshing tea. And I compared it with "cold
brewing", where you're taking ambient room-temperature
water and putting the tea to brew in the fridge.
I felt that the Kuri Dashi brewing, or ice-brewing,
had a soft taste [which was] very refreshing,
but didn't have the requisite strength for
my taste. And also, I picked up that flat,
stale taste that comes from melted ice cubes.
I received lots of comments saying that I
should have crystal-clear ice cubes. We have
tried all sorts of ice cubes. We've tried
the "cooler method", [and] we bought in all
types of ice cubes - very, very clear ice
cubes - and I still feel that when you melt
ice cubes there is a particular flat, and
stale, taste which you can pick up in the
tea. On the other hand, the cold-brewing method
produces a tea which is less vibrant, less
refreshing, and has a little bit extra bitterness
and warmth. And the goal here is to produce
the most refreshing green tea possible, so
we need to be stimulating the cold receptors
on our tongue. Those receptors are related
to the trigeminal system, which picks up not
only temperature, but it also reacts to flavor.
So we're gonna be making the ultimate, and
- I have to say - luxurious, iced green tea
to max up the stimulation of those cold receptors,
to make the most refreshing tea possible.
We have in front of us Fuka Mushi Sen Cha.
This is the tea that we're gonna be using.
That's the tea that I talked about last week.
I have to say we are now sold out of this
tea. There's gonna be more coming in September.
You can replace this tea with other Japanese
green teas. I would recommend breaking them
up a little bit so that you've got more surface
area for the extraction. Fuka Mushi style
is naturally broken because of the deep-steamed
method. You can use other green teas, or yellow
teas - Chinese as well. You can experiment.
All of the techniques that I'm gonna be showing
you today apply to those, but we're gonna
focus on this baby here. Right, let me go
get some water... I told you it would be geeky.
This is the most extravagant way to make a
refreshing green tea. Take what you want from
these techniques, [and] leave when you don't
- what you feel is over-the-top. But I wanted
to show you the pinnacle - the ultimate. Let's
start with the water. This is filtered, and
Granderized, tap water which has then been
sitting for a couple of hours with these bamboo-charcoal
filters. I love these filters. They add a
softness, and a sweetness, and extra texture
to the water. But use your favorite bottled
water. Use a very well-filtered tap water
if you'd like, and see if you can get a hold
of some of these. I'll put a link in the description
below. I have 250 [milliliters] of water here,
and I have 11 grams of the Fuka Mushi Sen
Cha. So we're brewing Gong Fu style here,
[with] ice water - very cold water - Gong
Fu style. [It's] very extravagant. If you
want to cut down the amounts you can, but
in my opinion - and I've done these tests;
believe me, I've done lots of tests - it doesn't
give you the sam00e richness. It's [an excellent,
refreshing] green tea, but not the same richness.
Now, the temperature of the water. I'm not
using ice. I don't want to use ice, because
of that flat, stale taste. [I, instead], want
to chill my water down to 10 degrees Celsius
[50 degrees Fahrenheit]. That is the sweet
spot for me, 10 degrees Celsius. So what I'm
doing here is I am using a tried-and-tested
method using salt in ice cubes and water.
So equal amounts of ice cubes, water, and
a good helping of salt, and that creates super-cooling.
now you can put water in the fridge at sort
of 5 degrees, and leave it overnight to cool
down. That's fine. You can do that. However,
again in my opinion, there is a tendency for
the water to sort of lose its vibrancy, and
maybe start to pick up some of the aromatics
in the fridge. I really like to go all out
if I'm gonna make the ultimate refreshing
green tea, and we are going to super-cool
it. So what's happening here is that the salt
is lowering the melting point of the ice,
and that means that the ice stays in here
and doesn't melt too quickly, and that can
super-cool this water with a lot of surface
area around this metal jug, and it will cool
down very, very quickly. So we're gonna see
it cool down super-quickly. This is often
used in ice cream. So stir the ice in, and
that will cool down to 10 degrees [Celsius].
[STIRRING] Right. That water is now at 8 degrees
here. [It's] very, very cold. That took about
a minute of stirring. So now we can take this
out, and immediately we are going to pour
this Sen Cha directly in, [and] give it a
stir. I'm gonna use the other side of this
spoon so it doesn't go salty. And we're gonna
cover this with cling film, into a fridge
set at 4 degrees Celsius, and we're gonna
leave it for an hour-and-a-half... The hour-and-a-half
is nearly up. I'm excited to taste. Of course,
if you use less leaf you're gonna have to
brew for longer periods of time. It's not
going to have the same richness as with the
Gong Fu brewing, but it will still make a
delicious tea. Just go in every half an hour,
give it a stir, put a straw in, [and] taste
it until it's the right strength for you.
And if you want to prepare more than one "luxury
glass" of this super-cooled green tea then,
of course, you can brew more larger quantities.
Once it's reached the right strength you can
strain it off into a thermos, and keep it
sealed in the fridge, but it will oxidize.
So try to time it that there isn't too much
of a gap between it being ready and the time
of your serving. What I have in front of me
are the garnishes. But these aren't just for
looks. They add a whole other element to this
tea. So while you can ignore them I highly
recommend that you give these a try, because
I wanted to make sure that we kept the Fuka
Mushi Sen Cha pure, unadulterated. We didn't
want to flavor it with sugars, or sweeteners,
or fruit juices, like other iced teas. But
this little garnish on the side just raises
that refreshment level. I have here watermelon.
Now watermelon is a delicious,, lightly-sweet
fruit. It's not going to dominate. It's not
going to take over. But there are some shared
volatile aromatics in watermelon that are
also in tea. Specifically, [there's] the aldehyde
hexanal. Hexanal has that amazing green aroma
that comes from freshly-cut grass, and if
you smell [SMELLING] watermelon rind it has
that incredible green scent, similar to cucumbers.
Also, in watermelon is geraniol, which is
another really bright, fresh aroma, and that
is going to all amp up the refreshment factor
- the cooling factor - of this drink. Also,
there's gonna be a little bit of sweetness
that comes from the watermelon which is just
going to add that extra element to the tea.
What I have here is some saline solution - basically
just water and salt. Now it's a very common
tradition to salt watermelon - especially
if it's not sweet enough - because salt is
a flavor-enhancer. It's going to bring out
more of the flavor of anything, sweet and
salty. So [what I'm] gonna do is I'm gonna
brush the side of this watermelon with this
salt water. [BRUSHING] [It's] just salt water.
You can make it as salty as you'd like. You
could also sprinkle over coarse salt if you
wanted that little flourish, but I like it
to be even. Right. I've got here some matcha.
This is Uji Hickory matcha. Again, we are
pulling out all the stops for this tea. [It's]
pure luxury, so we're taking the best matcha
possible. This is our "Master's" matcha. [It's]
incredible. [It] has very similar flavors
in the greenness of a Sen Cha, but it's gonna
add a little bit of creaminess, [and] it's
gonna accentuate those umami notes as well,
so we want to add that in here. So what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna make this garnish, and
- let's see what I'm gonna do here - I'm gonna
cut here [CUTTING] like this, right? And then
I'm gonna cut down the rind [CUTTING], because
this rind is full of those green notes. If
you just smell the rind of a watermelon [SMELLING],
Oh! [It's] just bracing freshness, [and] coolness.
[It's] exactly what you want on a summer's
day. [SMELLING] [It's] so refreshing - very
similar to cucumber, but a little bit sweeter.
Now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to dust
this salted side of the watermelon with the
Uji Hickory matcha. [DUSTING] If you've never
had matcha and watermelon I highly recommend
it. Okay, [the] garnish is now ready. Let
me pull out the glasses from the freezer and
get that tea... This glass has been sitting
in the freezer for a few hours. I don't want
to use any ice cubes, [and] I don't want to
dilute this tea at all. So we're keeping it
as cold as possible by freezing the glass.
We want the temperature of this tea to be
4 degrees [Celsius], because that is the most
dense that water gets, and therefore we're
gonna have the thickest texture possible.
All right, I'm running this rind around the
rim so that we really have that incredible
cut grass taste, and then I'm leaving this
rind to dip into the tea itself. Again, [it's]
all about accentuating those cool aromatics
- those refreshing aromas. Here we go. [Let's]
give this Fuka Mushi Sen Cha a little stir.
[STIRRING] And finally, the moment we've been
waiting for, in goes this beautiful, vibrant
green. [POURING TEA] For everybody thinking,
"Why are you using a plastic filter?" this
is the best filter that I have for filtering
Fuka Mushi, because, as anybody who's drunk
Fuka Mushi Sen Cha will tell you, it does
tend to clog up filters a little bit, as you
can see. Just get every last drip. Every drop
is precious. Check out that color - [the]
vibrancy. I'm gonna give this a little stir
just to help that through. And there you have
it. Get every last drop. As I said, those
are gold. Let's take a look. The finished
drink [is] a bit exuberant. I will grant you
that. [It's] definitely not your average green
tea. You can cut down that watermelon a little
bit more. It would probably be a little bit
more elegant. But check it out. This is a
true treat. [It's a] super-cooled Fuka Mushi
Sen Cha, and for me - well, let's taste it
- but when I was doing my test this is the
ultimate way to drink this tea. Okay. [SIPS
TEA] Oh! Oh! The aromatics of [the watermelon
rind] hits your nose first. That's the prequel.
You know that something very refreshing and
bracing is going to come, because [SMELLING]
you can pick up the aromatic - that cucumber
freshness - from the watermelon rinds. The
temperature is perfect. Four degrees [Celsius]
makes it very thick, and viscous, and cooling.
I didn't want one of those sort of shaken
drinks that had bits of ice, or [the sort
of] shards of ice, in the tea. Whilst being
very refreshing - and I do enjoy that - what
I wanted here was something really, really
luxurious, smooth, and thick, and that 4 degrees
really, really contributes to that. Let me
give it another taste. [SIPS TEA] The flavor
- the aromatics of the watermelon rind - marry
perfectly with the cucumber greenness - and
cut grass greenness - of this tea. There is
no bitterness, but there's enough bite, there's
enough texture, [and] there's enough depth
at the end. So you're going from really, really
cool aromatics, and cool sensation - cucumbers,
[and] green melons moving in through that
cut grass. [It's] a little bit vegetal. You're
getting some of that umami - the savory note
coming through - but it's really, really understated.
And what I love about this tea, compared to
the Kuri Dashi, is that whilst attenuating
the bitterness - so there's zero bitterness
- you are getting enough of a bite, enough
of a depth, enough of [an] aftertaste - especially
[on the back] of my tongue. And it's lemony,
and citrusy, and just singing. Right. Now,
let's give this watermelon garnish a bite.
So I'm gonna bite down on the matcha - and
salted - watermelon. [TASTING] The salt brings
out all of the flavors, [and] intensifies
the sweetness. The matcha and watermelon combination
is great. I can get it through my nose. The
aromatics [are] just fresh, fresh, fresh.
[It's] almost like a sea air freshness, but
really cold sea air, and [TASTING] that cut
grass combo with the Fuka Mushi. I'm gonna
spin the glass to make sure I get a little
bit more of that watermelon rind. [SIPS TEA]
Oh! Please try this. Please try this. [TASTING]
That has to be, for me, the pinnacle of cold
green teas. Everything is on point. [With]
the water [there's] no taste of that "melted
ice cube" staleness or flatness. [It just
tastes] pure. It tastes sweet. It tastes soft.
It's viscous. Oh, it's amazing. [SIPS TEA]
I totally love this drink, and if I was served
this at a high-end restaurant I would be singing
its praises. Look, I can't stop gushing over
this drink. I love it so much. I highly recommend
that you try this super-cooled, really, really
low-temperature brewing. Ten degrees is, I
think, the "sweet spot". Make sure you pick
good water. Make sure you use a lot of leaf.
Make sure that you get the glass in the freezer
so that you have a cold glass, rather than
having to add ice cubes. Serve it at 4 degrees
[Celsius], and see if you can come up with
a garnish as good as that. If you do come
up with other recipes please stick them down
in the comments, and if you try this super-cooled
Fuka Mushi Sen Cha iced tea please let me
know what you think. That's it "teaheads".
Check out our other videos, [and] taste our
teas wherever you are in the world by browsing
MeiLeaf.com, and if you're ever in London
then come visit our teahouse in Camden. Other
than that, I'm Don from Mei Leaf. Thank you
for being a part of the "revelation of true
tea". Stay away from those tea bags, keep
drinking the "supreme stuff", and spread the
word, because nobody deserves bad tea. Bye
[WAVING].
