Drinking Temp

I like my tea on the hot side of warm—i.e. not hot enough to burn my tongue (which is pretty easy to do, so I’m cautious)—but not lukewarm. I also find that tea has more flavor at that point than it would when it’s scalding—probably because at the scalding point my tongue’s too busy being burned to detect anything else.

I like warm tea…almost hot if it’s a really cold day out. But I take forever to drink my tea. I tend to make it and then wait, it’s usually at least half an hour before my first sip. And then I sip…and sip…and sip. Depending on how much I enjoy the tea, it’s usually cold by the time I finish a cup. Which is fine by me! One of the tests of a good tea for me is if it can sit a while without going bitter nods

Now my wife, De, she has to have hers hot. And I mean hot. If it cools down to room temp, it’s too cold for her and she won’t drink it >.<. This is also the way we eat, which I think is interesting. She likes her food hot, hot, hot, straight from the oven. I’ve seen her zap a meal 2-3 times to get it hot enough. Me? I like my food lukewarm, and I almost never reheat leftovers before eating them.

I bought her this little beauty: http://verdanttea.com/shop/tea-wares/lucky-toad-yellow-tea-charm/ to pour her leftover tea on, and I told her it would bring her luck. She loves it! Although now I suspect she leaves some tea in her cup just so she can pour it over her little frog XD.

ALL GLORY TO THE TEA-TOAD.

But yeah. What my wife said.

Nothing too hot….

I remember reading an article in some newspaper (I think it was the Guardian?) about some study that shows tea is best taken after six minutes of cooling without the tea in it for some compounds to infuse correctly, or some weird wibbly-wobbly sciency-wiency stuff.

That being said, I like hot enough thaw out the ol’ esophagus come wintertime, but not too scalding.

Just checked my perfect-temp cup out of curiosity—122 degrees F is perfect for me.

I like to drink hot, but not too hot to burn my tongue. But for some green teas and white tea, because the temperature is lower than Oolong teas( boiling water needed), so it is pretty to drink after brewed it.

Also, I found some materials said that the best temperature for drinking tea is 56 ºC or below. If you usually drink the tea to hot, it will have bad influence both on your esophagus and stomach. Even , they also indicated that drink cold tea will affect the body’s health.

Most importantly, the best temperature, in my opinion, is which can satisfied you and your palate.

Well, when it’s very hot you can’t really tell much except the heat when you drink it, but when you let it cool down a bit, to a temperature that won’t give you a burn and make you feel pain for 1 hour :), you can sense everything, fragrance, taste, aftertaste, so that’s my ideal temperature.

Even in the summer I drink my tea hot, I tried cold steeping, hot steeping and then putting in the fridge but it doesn’t satisfy me, it’s like wasting the tea and getting efficiency like 20-50% or something

I can’t usually drink it at coffee-shop level hot. If it’s burning lips and tongue, there’s no flavor being passed along, why waste precious sips?

Count me among the crowd who waits a few minutes after the steep.

I’ve heard of some serious data that suggests that drinking too much scalding hot tea can lead to cancer of the esophagus. (See http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20090326/hot-tea-may-raise-esophageal-cancer-risk )

That news didn’t worry me too much as I totally agree with the author of this post and I find I can experience more flavour in tea when I let it cool, and I find it a measure of the quality of tea (and coffee, for that matter) if it still tastes good after it cools.