Never going to lie, hot brew tea gets a lot more love from the tea lovers than the cold brew ones. The reason behind this might be cold brew being new to the market. However, if you survey, people from a long age used the cold brew method for making iced tea!
And now, we have arrived to discuss the basic difference between cold brew tea bags and regular tea bags for your better understanding!
All you need to do is go through the discussion and inform yourself a little more!
Regular Tea Bags vs. Cold Brew Tea Bags
Now, if you are new to tea, you won’t understand the difference immediately. However, yes, the lovers of any of these teas will tell you that there are visible differences between cold brew tea bags and regular ones.
Regular Tea Brewing Process
Tea is just like coffee. But for coffee, things are easier. All you need is to search for an ideal dual broiler espresso machine and get the ingredients inside it. But with tea, you need to deal with loose tea leaves! Along with the leaves, you will require hot water. For regular tea, hot water is a must.
The water should be close to boiling to extract the ingredients and fragrance from the leaves. However, there are times that you don’t like to use direct tea leaves. In that case, the safest option is to settle for teabags. These are convenient and work as well as the tea leaves. No matter what tea leaves or bags you use, there will be a specific temperature for the water.
The temperature requirement depends on the type of tea leaves or tea bags. However, sometimes, you keep the heat too much above the temperature that the tea leaves burn. If you do so, you will get a cup of tea that is bitter!
Regular Tea Bags
No matter how new you are to tea and how much you want to learn about what is the difference between cold brew tea bags and regular, tea bags are something we all have seen. From childhood, we have watched tea bags in the stores to the advertisements. So, we all briefly know about how teabags look.
These ordinary tea bags that we see in the store are packaged with a specific amount of tea leaves. These are handy to carry and easy to make. The packaged tea leaves should be brewed with 8oz. of water according to the companies.
Make sure that the water you use is hot enough to brew the tea properly. The amount of tea you get in a package completely depends on the size of the package and the company that has manufactured it. Check it before you purchase.
Iced Tea Brewing Process
When it comes to iced tea, we usually make it by cold brewing. Some people use a cold brew coffee maker for this too. In the regular tea-making process, we have used the tea leaves with hot water. As the name says, the water in the cold brewing process will be cold so that it ends up giving you the chill.
The cold water will extract all the ingredients from the leaves and will make you the same perfect tea but as a cold beverage. However, just like the regular hot tea is brewed within minutes, the case of cold brewing is not so easy. It takes a lot of time to brew and prepare it as a drink. All you need is a pot of cold water and then add leaves to the water.
Once you combine them, you have to get the tea brewed. For this process, you have to water until the brewing time is over. More or less it takes 15 hours or so for brewing a cup of cold brew tea. However, the time can also be shortened and elongate according to your taste. But according to cold brew tea lovers, you get better cold brew tea if you brew it a little longer.
The reason is cold water takes more time to extract the ingredients from the tea leaves than hot water. So, you have to wait for that long if you want cold brew tea or iced tea.
Cold Brew Tea Bags
Just like the regular tea bags available in the market, you will also get cold brew tea bags. Often people think that these are the same. But no, these are different. Such tea bags are new to the market. You get a specific amount of tea leaves inside the package so that you can make your cold brew tea without any other measurement.
If the measurement is wrong when you make cold brew tea, it will taste a lot worse than the hot tea. Usually, you have to keep it in the brewing process for a long period. And if you use the wrong measurement of tea leaves, the tea will get brewed imperfectly when you brew it for long.
And eventually, end up in something that you won’t like. On the other hand, if you measure it wrong, your 15 hours or more are lost! This is a gentle extraction method compared to regular tea. As it takes time, you already know that it is not so active in extracting the tannins and caffeine from the leaves or bags.
Tea Extraction and the Right Balance
Tea is just like coffee. All we do is add water and get out the small molecules from the solid tea leaves. This process of extracting the stuff from the leaves requires a lot of balance!
At times, the tea is not perfect because we don’t know how to keep the balance between the tea leaves, water, and temperature. All we have is caffeine, antioxidants, and tannins from the leaves but in a balanced amount. If you plan to use water that is too cold, you will not be able to extract a lot of ingredients from the leaves.
As a result, the tea will be less of a tea and more of a cup of water. On the contrary, if you add too much heat, you might see that your tea is burned, just as we mentioned before. And the tea will taste unpleasant.
You do not want any of these. So, get the right temperature for the right amount of water and tea. That’s all you need!
Wrap Up
So, you have already checked out the basic differences between cold brew tea bags and hot brew ones. If you are a tea lover, you already know all of these. However, for the newbie and the seekers for knowledge, it can help you in making the perfect cup of tea!
Here, we have mentioned what you have to be careful while making the different types of tea. Make sure you follow it, my friend!
