Making Great Blended Teas


One of the pleasures of using loose-leaf teas is being able to blend multiple teas and get a unique, delicious tea blend that is all your own. You can also blend teas to add health benefits; for example, adding Silver Needle White tea doesn’t change the taste of most teas, but will give you a big boost in antioxidants and help to detoxify your body.

But blending does require a bit of tea knowledge, so to speak. In the Teavana stores we often get questions about how to make blended teas, so it seems obvious we should answer those here.

Typically blended teas involve equal parts of two or three teas, but for a really custom blend feel free to mix the amounts so that they suit your tastes. When you are blending teas, you need to know how to steep each of the teas included in the blend. The general rule is that you make the tea according to the instructions on the tea that is most likely to get bitter.

So if your tea includes a green tea, you probably want to steep it at 175 to 180 degrees for just a minute or so. If it is two herbal teas, on the other hand, use boiling water and steep for around five minutes. As a guide, here are general instructions on steeping teas in order of sensitivity:

Green Teas: Heat water to 175-180 degrees (before boiling) and steep for 1 minute.

White Teas: Heat water to 175-180 degrees (before boiling) and steep for 1 – 1.5 minutes at most.

Black Teas: Heat water to 195-205 degrees (right at boiling) and steep for 2-3 minutes.

Oolong Teas: Heat water to 195-200 degrees (just before boiling) and steep for 3-4 minutes.

Herbal Teas: Heat water to just boiling and steep for 5-6 minutes.

To use this list, make your tea blend using the instructions on the highest tea on the list. So if you have a blend of White tea and Oolong tea, use the White tea instructions (they are first). Make sense?

Note that if you have specific instructions for the tea you’re making, use those (not all green teas should steep for 1 minute, for example). But these are general guidelines you can use.

So be creative and start blending fresh, loose-leaf teas together. See how delicious you can make a cuppa tea!

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May 30th, 2008
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
jon
Posted on:
September 20, 2008 at 9:08 pm

When blending, do you add them up in parts to match the water, or do you add them all together not taking into account the number of teas vs the oz level? In other words, if I wanted to blend 3 black teas for an 8 oz cup would I use 1 teaspoon of each tea or 1/3 teaspoon of each tea? If I wanted to make a mate/rooibos blend in 16 oz of water should I use 1.5 teaspoons of each tea, or 3 teaspoons of each tea?

Thanks!

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Angela
Posted on:
February 23, 2009 at 1:47 pm

“Typically blended teas involve equal parts of two or three teas.”

As a novice to blending teas, I’m confused as to how much of each tea I would need to blend together for a 8oz cup of tea. For example, if I’m blending two teas together for one cup, and each lists 1.5 tsp for 8oz, is the amount of tea I would need to use is 1.5tsp each for a total of 3tsp?

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
admin
Posted on:
February 23, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Tea blending is a bit of art as well as science. Theoretically, you would use the correct amount of tea for 8oz of water. So in Jon’s case, you would use 1/3 teaspoon of each tea in order to make the blend.

However, this also depends on the tea and your personal preferences. If you are blending a green tea (that steeps in 1 minute) with a Rooibos (that steeps in 5 minutes), I would add extra of the Rooibos (maybe two or three times as much as you should) in order to get the flavor in a 1 minute steep.

Personally, I usually overload in a blend because I prefer a bit more flavor in my teas. So in Angela’s case, I would probably use 1 tsp per tea, which gives you 2 tsp total – a bit more than the ‘correct’ amount. That’s just my personal preference.

In the end, I would try it a few ways. Over time you may prefer a blend that has 1 tsp of one tea with only 1/2 a tsp of another. There’s no ‘right’ answer when it comes to blending; you just want to discover the recipe that fits your tastes.

Hope that helps!

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
KT
Posted on:
October 23, 2009 at 1:52 pm

In the store they had a blend of iced Fruta Bomba Green Tea and Apple Lemon Pomegranate Rooibos Tea to sample. We liked the blend so I asked the Sales Assoc. how to blend them. She said equal amounts of each and that she could just blend the two into one tin for me. She showed me that she put both tags on the tin but you could only see the title of the green tea, not the steep time. She covered that up with the tag for the roobios and said to steep the mix as a roobios. I am new to tea so did not realize the difference between green & roobios and when I went home I steeped the tea for 5 minutes as the tag said and got a very bitter tea. From this article is seems that either she should mixed the two together not in equal parts but with more roobios so that I could steep for the shorter time but get the roobios flavor, or sold them to me separately so I could steep the roobios for three minutes and then add the green for two minutes. Is there any way to salvage the tea she mixed for me?