Tea Blog

Much has been said about the fast pace of modern life. So much, as a matter of fact, that I won’t belabor the point by saying much more. I’m not one to sit around and wail and gnash my teeth about this sort of thing because we can all choose the pace at which we live our lives, at least to some extent.

But I couldn’t help sitting up and taking notice recently when I ran across the following headline – Capresso Brews a Cup of Coffee or Tea in 60 Seconds. Well, I have to say that this seemed to be a bit much. I’m not one of those tea drinkers who gets all overcome with the meditative nature of the tea drinking experience. But on the other hand I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with that sort of approach.

I don’t think it would hurt any of us to slow down a bit and smell a few roses and whatnot, but my objection to this kind of speed tea is more along practical lines. I don’t know anything about preparing coffee and whether or not the process can be completed within a minute and still come up with something worth drinking. When it comes to tea I’d venture to say that the answer is no.

Of course, there is at least one notable exception I can think of and that is those who brew tea in the gaiwan style, using relatively large amounts of tea with smallish amounts of water and very short steeps. But to be slightly ungrammatical about the whole thing, this isn’t that.

This is tea prepared in the “Western” style, unless I’m missing something, and there are plenty of variables here to be sure. But for the most part 60 seconds isn’t going to cut it, especially for that old favorite of tea drinkers here in the West – black tea. I tend to steep my black tea near the lower end of the range, but even I always give it at least two minutes. Do the math.

My other concern with such a gadget is that tea seems an afterthought and it doesn’t seem that any allowance is made for the wide range of steeping times and water temperatures that are critical to prepare different types of tea effectively. Perhaps if you were going to spring for a product from this company your money would be better spent with something like this. You probably won’t get 60 second tea, but you can wait a few more minutes to make sure it’s done right.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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