Blanch
We have borrowed this word from cooking for use in tea preparation.
In cooking, to blanch means to scald an ingredient or ingredients with boiling water, or to parboil it/them before actual cooking. The ingredient involved is always drained well before going through the next step.
The same can be applied to tealeaves before tea infusion. To blanch the tealeaves means to pour hot water over them and then drain them thoroughly. Since different tea requires different infusion temperature, water of the same temperature for infusion is used for blanching to avoid jeopardising the intended infusion effect.
The duration of blanching, and sometimes even how many times a batch of tealeaves should be blanched is based on the quality and condition of the tealeaves and the subsequent infusion approach.
Blanching can be done within the same vessel that will be employed for the infusion.
The term blanch is used in the following articles in this site:
- Better Tea-making: Measurements
- Caffeine: How Much is Safe?
- Eight Immortals
- Gongfu Infusion Fundamental Steps: Blanch tea leaves
- Gongfu Infusion: Chapter 2
- Making Tea with the Mug
- Oolongs: Tasting & Buying Tips
- Post-fermented Tea (dark tea)
- Puer, a Post-fermented Tea
- Tea Infusion: Basic Techniques
- Tea Infusion: What does it Mean?
- Tea Usage Care and Cautions
- Tieguanyin, the Quintessential Minnan Oolong
- To blanch or not to blanch? That is the question
- To blanch, or not to blanch?
- To blanch, or not to blanch?
- Wuyi Oolongs: Tasting, Health & Buying Tips
- Zhenghe White Peony, Matured for 8 Years
