I have been drinking the same roasted oolong for two months, 5g in a 120ml gaiwan, water just off the boil, short steeps. I moved flat and bought a new kettle at the same time, and now it tastes thin and slightly chalky. Same leaf, same tin, same timings. Is it the kettle or the water, and how do I tell which?
Two months on one tin is worth mentioning too. Roasted oolongs fade, especially if the tin is opened daily and lives near a hob. Get a fresh sample of the same tea for your bottle test so you are only changing one thing.
Fair. It is opened every day and it lives above the kettle, which is probably the worst spot in the flat.
Heat and steam. Move it to a cupboard away from the cooking and the next tin will last noticeably longer.
Also check whether the new kettle has a temperature setting you have not noticed, and whether 'just off the boil' means something different in a taller kettle that cools faster. Four degrees on a roasted oolong is audible in the cup.
Brew both waters at the same time in identical vessels and taste them cool as well as hot. Cooling makes mineral differences much easier to spot if you are new to comparing.
Descale the new kettle before you test anything, unless it is genuinely brand new.
@petra_lindqvist · 5mo ago · 4 replies
It is the water, and the move is a much bigger clue than the kettle.
Tea is 99 percent water and mineral content changes extraction dramatically. High calcium and magnesium flattens aroma and gives exactly the thin, chalky quality you describe, particularly with roasted oolong where the aromatics are delicate. New postcode, different treatment works, different cup.
Testing it costs about $3. Buy a bottle of low mineral spring water, ideally something under about 50mg/L of dissolved solids, and brew the same leaf side by side with your tap. If the bottle tastes like the tea you remember, you have your answer in ten minutes.
If it is the water, your options in ascending order of effort are a filter jug (helps mostly with chlorine), bottled low mineral water for sessions you care about, or a remineralising setup with distilled water if you get properly obsessed. Most people stop at bottled.
The kettle only matters if it holds a rolling boil far too long or if it is scaling badly and shedding. Look inside it while you are there.
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@petra_lindqvist · 5mo ago
Everybody misses it. You notice the kettle because you bought it. The water just arrived quietly.
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@braise_brenda · 5mo ago
Bottle test tomorrow. I did not think of the move as a water change at all, which now seems dim.
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@tbr_theo · 6mo ago
Chalky is such a specific word and it is nearly always hardness. Good instinct even before you knew what you were describing.
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