Keeping Black Tea From Being Too Bitter?

The bitter taste comes from tannins. There are three ways for loose leaf tea to become unpleasantly bitter: steeping at too high a temperature, or steeping for too long, or using too many leaves. So it’s probably likely you just haven’t found the combination that works best for you.

I find I prefer a lot of black teas steeped between 190-200 and use that as my starting point usually (this is probably a byproduct of drinking a lot of darjeeling/nepalese teas and getting an unsatisfactory cup too many times).

But ultimately, each tea is unique, and each tea drinker’s taste is different. Experiment until you find what you consider to be the perfect cup of tea. :)

Timing is everything. The longer the steep the stronger the tannins. Do you use a timer? It’s so easy to get distracted after starting a cuppa brewing. Just checking email will take longer than when you thought you’d be back to remove the leaves. Use a timer that makes some noise. I love black tea and don’t enjoy bitterness either. My preference is 4 minutes. 3 to no longer than 5.

Supermarket tea is processed and packaged for instant gratification and brews quite strong in a minute or two.

Enjoy your new adventures in tea!

Thanks, everyone for your replies.

I am using a timer. The tea came from Teavivre and they recommended 90C so that’s what I was using. I’ve tried using as little as 1g of tea steeped for 1 minute and I still find it far too bitter to drink straight. By contrast I’ve not found that to be the case with any of the greens or oolongs I’ve tried.

For wine I like the bolder reds and they can sometimes be a bit tannic and that doesn’t bother me but for black tea that astringent, tannic taste just overwhelms the other flavors in the tea for me and send me looking for sugar or honey.

I guess I’ll keep trying variations while the samples last to see if I can find a combination for black tea that doesn’t need the masking effects of sweetener. But, from the sound of the responses it may just be that I’m a bit overly sensitive to bitter (I find coffee undrinkable). I’ve just found the green and oolongs so enjoyable without sweetener that I was hoping that would be the case for the blacks but perhaps that won’t be the case for me.

I hate tea because of tannin content. It is too bitter

Many black teas are best had with a sweetener, nothing wrong with it. Since you have already tried brewing with milder parameters, you just need to keep looking for something more acceptable to you. I often add honey to many of my black teas though not to high grade ones and not to very flavourful ones like Darjeeling.

High grade Chinese black teas brewed in a controlled manner through gong fu or Darjeeling brewed western style with attention to leaf/temperature/time are great without sweeteners.

Maybe you just don’t tolerate red tea tannins very well. Before you give up on them though I’d suggest you try a good grade of Yunnan black tea: something like Yunnan Sourcing’s Golden Needle, or one of their higher-grade dianhongs.

I always brew black tea with boiling or near-boiling water (well except sometimes Darjeelings) and almost always drink them plain.

George Orwell was of the opinion that India tea (he was probably thinking of Assam) should be taken with skim milk but no sugar.

It’s all personal preference, but I find that Taiwanese blacks have low to non-existent bitterness and tolerate imprecise steeping very well. And I’ll second the suggestion of Yunnan blacks. I don’t find that they get very bitter or acidic.

But they may just not be for you. I find greens can get bitter very quickly for me.

Agree with aardvark and Nicole. Good dianhong and TW black will give you lovely black tea flavor with nice complexity and NO bitterness unless brewed very strong. They can take the heat, too. Most teabag/CTC/tea dust blacks make me extremely nauseous on an empty stomach. Chinese teas don’t have this effect. The teabag stuff is meant to be drunk with sugar, and in the case of tea for the UK/Commonwealth/South Asian markets, with milk.

So basically in discussing bitterness there are three areas we have to consider:

1. The tea itself
2. Brewing method
3. What you do to the tea afterwards.

The philosophy itself will be helpful for your entire lifetime of tea making.

Thanks everyone for sharing your experience! I never meant to imply there was something wrong with sweeteners. I’m just trying to cut down on the amount I consume so finding teas I can drink without them is a priority right now.