Monday March 30, 2009 | 11 comments
Correct me if I am wrong, but I sense there is a perception out there among tea aficionados that anytime you take premium loose leaf tea, crush the leaves a bit, and force them through a pressurized machine, the resulting cup of tea would be less than drinkable.
Through a period of several years, I’ve discovered from numerous experiments with Klub’s Teapresso machine, that this is nothing more than hearsay.
The reality is that Teapresso is one of the best tea steepers I have ever had the pleasure of working with.
When I first started to experiment with the NT2 model at a teahouse in the Okanagan in British Columbia, I was primarily concerned with its ability to produce a concentrated tea shot that could mimic an espresso shot. I knew that if you could take premium loose leaf tea and extract all possible essence from the leaf in less than two minutes, you would have the ability to produce an endless array of tea-based beverages. Just think of the possibilities. Very cool indeed.
So, when Jarod at Jagasilk in Victoria BC posed the question to me, “How well does the Teapresso make just a straight-up cup of tea?”, I was pretty certain it would stand up to scrutiny.
I remember at the 2007 World Tea Expo, I was in the Klub booth when a stately looking Darjeeling estate owner saw me working the machine and became curious as to how well the unit could produce a cup of first flush Darjeeling tea. He disappeared momentarily and returned clutching a small foil bag of his top pick. He wanted me to make him a cup from the Teapresso. Nervously, I proceeded to make the eager man an eight-ounce cup of tea from the leaves provided. He moved in close to scrutinize the whole process. After a minute or so, I handed him what appeared to be a perfectly brewed cup of Darjeeling – at least from a color perspective.
He took a sip, paused a moment, then took another sip. A big smile opened up across his broad face. He informed me that it was indeed an excellent cup of tea – no bitterness, not over steeped, overflowing with flavor.
Two years later, I again started to try high-end loose leaf teas brewed by the cup from the Teapresso. Jarod’s call came at an opportune time – I was traveling to Victoria to train tea bar staff on a new Teapresso I had installed in what is arguably Canada’s tea capital. Jarod and I agreed to meet at the tea bar in Oak Bay and try some very delicate and rare senchas and an array of other premium loose leaf teas. With tea bar staff looking on, Jarod and I, his Japanese partner, and another café owner, proceeded to make cup after cup of tea from the Teapresso. On the service counter beside the machine, we were brewing the same tea in a classic French press so we could do straight-across comparisons. The curiosity was palpable. Time and again, all concerned sided with the extraction from the Teapresso. The tea was smoother and more full bodied, and the subtleties in the leaf were more than evident. There was a distinct air of surprise and elation among the entire group when reality sunk in – the Teapresso indeed brewed a superior cup of tea – hands down.
If you recall some of the early Teapresso videos on YouTube, in Asia the bulk of the tea being served from Teapressos was tea to-go. I guess they knew well before we did that to achieve a great cup of tea every 1.5 minutes in a busy tea café environment, a Teapresso is one of the few methods available today. I have always been a staunch advocate of serving the customer the best possible cup of tea in the quickest fashion – especially in busy café environments.
The mechanics behind how the Teapresso accomplishes the task of extracting all the essence from the leaf are a result of correct temperature and water pressure being forced through the group head on the machine. The tea leaves sit inside a porta filter, which then attaches to a standard group head. As the leaves get sprayed with water from the group head, 130 psi of pressure force the essence of the leaf through the porta filter and into the cup. It is this pressure that separates all the other methods of brewing tea from the Teapresso. The result is one of the best cups of tea I have ever tasted. It’s that simple.
I suggest to you that whenever you get the chance to try your favorite tea extracted from a Teapresso by someone who knows how to use one properly, you should jump all over it. It will allow you to judge for yourself the results.
Hopefully, I will be behind the machine. Happy sipping.
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good info
Ain’t technology grand…..!
Hello, Bryan. As you know, a large chain uses a standard espresso machine to do their loose leaf tea beverages. We have developed our own patent pending loose leaf brewing technology that is very different from the espresso-type extraction and takes one minute for any tea or herbal. We use it in the store here every day.
It would be fun to see both methods side by side in a blind taste test along with a standard steep. We have actually done that here (minus the espresso-style extraction method) where
respected tea cuppers were involved and they were amazed at the results, much the same as you relate. There is room in the market for all comers and what an exciting time when a beverage with the history of tea is being brewed in new and exciting ways that make it time-accessible in situations where it may not have been before. We received a call a few weeks back from an inventor of a similar machine to the Teapresso, wanting to get to know more about us and hoping that we could all be part of this new ‘day’ to promote specialty loose leaf tea..the big goal.
Happy brewing!
Forgive me; I was excited to read your post and called you Bryan, Brendan. I’m a fan of your blog and am happy to see you as a contributor here.
This is very interesting to me Brendan. Thank you for the information. I am eager to have a first hand experience trying tea from this machine.
hey,
-appreciate that you took her time to read my post. Hopefully you can see the niche the teapresso can fill. It’s not meant to detract from the history & subtleties of tea, but to provide exquisite, on-demand, high end, loose leaf tea in environments that have successful coffee house style traffic flow.
I believe that time is near.
One exciting aspect is all those newbies jumping into tea and feeling the great health benefits that we can deliver -lickety split. Correctly steeped gen mai in the young basketball player’s hand in 1:15 secs.
I drink a lot of tea and I will take tea anyway – it only has to be good.
yxing, cast iron, glass, teapresso – all make great tea. The ‘presso just works faster in a high demand environment.
anyone tasted any of the 09 picks?
ciau,
Brendan
typo – ‘the’ time to read my post. not her
Our brewing system is in a coffee-house environment at our concept store where people run in and out. We have them out the door in under 2 minutes with our 1-minute brewing system, so I understand exactly what you are saying, Brendan. Our system does not use an espresso extraction and we have a deep, rich infusion that is consistent every single time. And we have never had a repair or down-time in the 8+ months we have been running. Expense is also a factor. We are not ready to market our technology to other shops at this point, but it is very cost-effective when and if we do go in that direction down the road.
Like you, we are always looking for innovation and ways to make tea-drinking more accessible.
Some of our favorite customers are the high school students at the school right next door.
An exciting point in the U.S. is that iced tea and coffee are almost neck in neck now for
foodservice volume, as I understand it.
Argo Tea in Chicago put in a brewing room in one of their stores where they brew loose leaf into a concentrated form to add water to at point of sale. I haven’t personally tried it but it works for
their philosophy of serving tea to the masses, as they have looked at becoming the Starbucks of Tea.
As such good water is the essence of all these experiments. A good water filter to give the same stuff anywhere in any city from the local supply is the key to sucess.
Afterall water is the mother of tea.
You are absolutely correct Lochantea. Excellent quality water has to go into the machine to output an excellent quality cup of tea – no compromises here. Most boilers from espresso machines have a tainted quality, thereby inhibiting, masking and altering the quality of the tea it produces. Fortunately, the teapresso has a stainless boiler which keeps the water remarkably clean and taste free.
Thanks for the comment!
Hi Brendon,
Just read your blog. You are a very good storyteller and it’s nice to recall that cool experience. A note I would make is that we did not steep the leaves in a French Press, but in an 8oz/240ml Hario. On top of that, we were weighing the leaves, measuring temperature, timing the steep and controlling the water volume.
Regardless, the Teapresso results were really nice. The deeply steamed sencha especially shined. I really like how you could run the shots getting nice full strengthed tea without pulling astringency. I think you get an even more premium cup by manually running each tea shot, rather than using the programmed shots. I still can’t reproduce what you did with that pure Rooibos cappuccino!
Point of story: The Teapresso came out more consistent than my method, though I think they both have their place. The Teapresso was cleaner. In my tea bar we will offer both options. And you cannot beat a full cup of tea steeped via the Teapresso in a nice ceramic cup. Really good stuff. Anybody reading this should really give it a try.
Jared and Miyu Nyberg
JagaSilk