New profile: Tea in a basket in de1app
There's a new profile for making tea with a regular portafilter basket, now in the Nightly version of the de1app, and which is shortly about to become the STABLE version.
It's hidden by default, so tap the eyeball icon to check it and thus unhide it:
There are some instructions on how to use it:
I spent the past two weeks making and tweaking this recipe, because I went on holiday with my Decent, a tin of loose leaf English Breakfast tea, and a very distraught girlfriend Bugs, when she learned that I'd forgotten to pack the Tea Portafilter.
This makes an acceptable mug of tea, very similar to what a kettle + steep would produce in flavor. I would not say it is superior to kettle brewed tea, unlike (for me) the Tea Portafilter, which makes a better cuppa, to my taste buds.
However, what it is, is much, much more convenient when making loose leaf tea, since you can just “knock out” the spent tea leaves into your knockbox. No mess, unlike normal loose leaf tea brewing.
I like my English Breakfast tea to be weaker, and without milk, so I make a 2nd extraction after the first “British Extraction” for Bugs, which does take milk.
One good test, for me, of an extraction method, is whether a 2nd extraction is possible, and whether it is indeed weaker than the first. If yes to both, then the extraction method is likely fairly good.
Approach-wise, what tasted the best, was eight alternating 10 second pauses (brewing) followed by relatively low flow (3 mL/s) rinses of the leaves, lasting 10 seconds. Not alternating (ie, trying a constant constant low flow) produced a much more tannic drink. Total time of 3 minutes is the same as kettle-brewed. 2 minutes wasn't strong enough, and 4 minutes started to produce tea that at the end was too weak for this style of drink.
A 105ºC temperature attempt “steamed” the tea, and was a pleasant flavor, but too much water was lost to vapor, and the cup was very much not full.
Lower than 100ºC produced a weaker brew. I did not try this approach with more delicate teas that require lower temperatures. It might work; I'd love to hear how you fare.
Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention.
-john
Updated 2022/02/16