CAST IRON TEA KETTLES.. It’s one of those things that makes good tea taste even better.
Have you ever notice how fancy wine connoisseurs use a fancy wine glass to sip and enjoy their wine. It just goes together so well. If you’re looking to enhance your tea drinking experience you might want to invest in a cast iron tea kettle or
Tetsubin- a Japanese cast iron tea kettle, used as a water boiling kettle.
The cost is generally $50 to $800 depending on the size or the hand made craftsmanship.
So what makes this kettle so amazing?
A naked iron kettle mineralizes and softens the water you boil in it, which makes for a noticeably richer, sweeter brew with less bitterness, greater depth, and smoother character.
is it necessary, not at all while some
swear by it and will only choose this type of kettle to boil water in, I prefer it because of their excellent heat distribution and retention properties, they tend to keep boiled water hotter for longer than any other kettle beside an electrical warming kettle. Brewing tea using this particular teapot in my opinion taste better.
The cast irons rustic look also ages beautiful, they can be kept up to many years of use.
Be mindful of imposters these pots are lined with enamel on the inside, which neutralizes the water-softening effect you're going for, and are unsafe for boiling water on the stove, Pease remember that they're are not great for making tea, but designed for brewing of steeping tea leaves only, making them unsuitable for stovetop or charcoal fire use.
Highly designed tetsubin can be expensive, and serve as status symbols better suited for display than teamaking. Smaller, practical models are easily found, and are a pretty addition to any tea brewing collection.
How to brew tea using your Cast Iron Teapot.
1. Select your tea Though most contemporary tetsubin teapots are enamel-coated on the inside, a patina can still develop over time depending on the type of tea you are using. For this reason, you'll want to select only one kind of tea (say, green, or lightly-oxidized oolongs) to use over and over again in your pot, as you would with other slightly porous teapots. Pick something you like—and stick to it!
2. Preheat and rinse Since you are working with cast iron, preheating your pot is an essential step. Boil water using an alternate source, and fill and rinse your teapot once or twice with the hot water. This both begins to warm up the teapot and rinses it clean—due to the tetsubin's shape, it can sometimes be hard to see how clean it is.
3. Measure your tea Tetsubin teapots come in a range of sizes, so you'll want to measure your tea proportionally to how much water you intend to use. Start with somewhere around 1 teaspoon of tea per 8 ounces of water, and adjust the quantity of your tea to taste as you learn about your teapot.
If your pot comes with a built-in strainer basket, you may prefer to brew smaller quantities of tea at a time, so as to not overpack the strainer and allow for optimum leaf expansion. Place the tea in the strainer and set into the tetsubin, or if there is no strainer, spoon it into the pot itself.
4. Heat your water and steep Heat water in a separate kettle, and when it's reached the right temperature for the tea you've selected, pour the measured amount of water over the leaves and steep (for green tea, for instance, steep about 2 minutes at 175° to 185° F).
5. Serve and clean up Now that your tea is ready, make sure to decant it all from the tetsubin pot at once so that it does not overextract. If your tetsubin does not have a built-in strainer, you'll need to pour the liquid off through a secondary strainer.
After you've finished as many infusions as you like, take great care to rinse out (use warm water so as not to crack the cast iron) and then dry your pot thoroughly (including lid and strainer basket) to prevent any rust anywhere on the pot. Never use soap.