A controversy over adding lemon and salt to tea

Facebook tea groups are wrapping up a phase of discussion about the theme of adding lemon or salt to tea, a recommendation from a recent book on tea.

This relates to Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, by Michelle Francl. Basically salt is supposed to offset astringency and lemon reduces tea scum or cloudiness caused by calcium compounds. Here are the claims, cited in an article reviewing that book content (which I guess could contain some error in summary, to be fair to the original author):

Francl’s pro tips for the perfect brew are:

Adding a pinch of salt – the sodium ion in salt blocks the chemical mechanism that makes tea taste bitter.

Steeping teabags quickly but with plenty of dunking and squeezing – to reduce the sour-tasting tannins created by caffeine dissolving slowly in water.

Decaffeinated tea can be made by steeping a teabag for 30 seconds, removing it and discarding the liquid, then adding fresh water and rebrewing for five minutes.

A small squeeze of lemon juice can remove the “scum” that sometimes appears on the surface of the drink, which is formed from chemical elements in the tea and water….

There are two sets of problems with these ideas: one is that they make no sense, presented in this form, and the other is that what they really probably refer to that could be accurate, after some editing and adjustment, is still problematic.

It’s possible that the first claim is that when you taste salt you also notice less bitterness. It could instead relate to a claim that sodium is going to offset extraction of compounds resulting in astringency, which is a mouthfeel effect that is often confused with bitterness.  Bitterness is a flavor, not a mouthfeel aspect, but people conflate the two. It doesn’t clearly say that; that’s only one possible interpretation of this summary. 

Caffeine really does taste bitter, as some other medications do, like aspirin, but surely salt isn’t going to offset caffeine extraction. Salt doesn’t seem likely to affect tannin extraction either, but I suppose I wouldn’t know if it did. In the following point, related to caffeine, tannins aren’t created by caffeine, and again it seems doubtful that caffeine could affect tannin extraction.  Again the feel effect of tannins is more often misinterpreted as bitterness, not sourness.

A short tangent can help place that first possible interpretation.  I add salt to masala chai (spiced black tea) to increase flavor depth, which happens even without noticeable salty flavor, as can occur with food.  Once out with family to a Mongolian grill place a niece and I added salt to our dishes that ended up way too spicy.  Salt doesn’t decrease the experience of spice, the heat, but it can help spicy food flavors balance better and make more sense.  This may be the claim here, that the salt isn’t blocking any compound extraction, or shifting feel effect, but that the overall flavor balance might seem more positive when shifted a little, potentially even without the tea tasting salty.  Maybe.

That decaffeination hack listed has been debunked over and over; this study’s caffeine extraction rate testing results work as good a summary review as any to show why:

30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal

1 minute: 18% caffeine removal

So no, removing 9% of the caffeine isn’t going to help much, and you're probably removing 9% of the flavor along with it. Beyond these errors some main points work, to a limited degree, which I’ll move on to critiquing.

One problem with these claims goes back to why a tea would be astringent or would have a scum on it in the first place. It’s talking about brewing low quality, ground material, tea-bag black tea, which is very astringent for a few different reasons.

The form of the leaf is a main input; whole leaf tea is less astringent, because compounds extract differently in ground material (tannins, to use the informal designation; let’s get back to what those really are shortly). The more you chop or grind the material the faster it brews, and the more overall flavor is extracted, just not necessarily the most positive flavor or feel related compounds.  This is why tea bags that contain 2 or 2 1/2 grams of tea leaf material are quite chopped or even ground up, to get more out of a little leaf content, which brews faster. So you can use better quality, more whole-leaf tea instead and skip the salt, but it’s more expensive, and you would need to use a bit more leaf.

a Ceylon (Sri Lankan tea) tea bag I cut open awhile back.

It doesn’t add much to what I’ve just expressed but lets consider what tannins even are, in relation to some of the flavor compounds being discussed, from this Tea Epicure source:

There are an estimated 30,000 polyphenolic compounds in tea.There are several known categories within polyphenols…

Within the flavonoid group are flavanols, flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, and anthocyanins. Flavanols (short for flavan-3-ols) are the most prevalent and thus the most studied. Flavanols are often referred to as tannins or catechins. 

The major flavanols in tea are: catechin (C), epicatechin (EC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), gallocatechin (GC), epigallocatechin (EGC), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the most active of the catechins, and this flavanol is often the subject of studies regarding tea antioxidants.

Flavanols are converted to theaflavins and thearubigins during oxidation. They are the compounds responsible for the dark color and robust flavors that are present in oxidized teas…

The same kind of theme repeats with adding lemon. If you use water very high in calcium compounds, which is not so unusual for a lot of water sources, a light scum can form on the top of your tea, from polyphenols in the tea interacting with those calcium compounds. Lemon juice can clear that up. Or passing the water through a charcoal filter might help, removing some of the calcium compounds instead, before they combine with brewed tea and form a scum. 

“Tea enthusiasts” often use some special water version, bottled spring water from an ideal mineral profile source, or they’ll treat water to strip all the minerals, reverse osmosis filter it, and re-add an optimum mineral blend. All that might be going a bit far; in most cases using filtered tap water is fine for a decent outcome.  The extra level of concern seems to relate to optimizing outcome from a much better quality range of tea, the opposite extreme.

So in conclusion, no, salt and lemon have no place in tea. 

Or if you really want to use cheap tea bags to make tea, and brew it with relatively unsuitable high calcium content water, then sure, add those things. It’s your tea; it’s up to you.

If the goal is to experience above average quality tea that changes things, but that’s not everyone’s goal. Lipton or Great Value tea bags are really cheap, and easy to prepare, and if you add milk and sugar to that tea it can be ok. Or sugar and lemon, I guess; I don’t think it’s going to work to add both lemon and milk, since drinking curdled milk in tea won’t be pleasant. It’s just nothing like what tea enthusiasts drink.  

Most of the time, at least; I’ll drink Lipton sometimes at our office, because I’m only in there once a week after work from home was instituted.  Dilmah is better but they usually stock Lipton there.  There probably is no standard example of a tea enthusiast, so I couldn't possibly be one, but the generality of not using tea bag tea still holds up.

this meme breakdown makes for a long story

It’s too long a subject to treat as a short tangent here but pleasantness of the tea, flavor character and such, is only one part of range of concerns. Tea enthusiasts tend to take up the idea that more natural grown tea could be healthier, from forest or more natural growing condition sources, versus standard plantation teas, which are potentially grown with more pesticide input. Maybe it works out like that.  My guess is that Lipton is safe enough, but once you switch over to the lowest cost bulk sources from Chinese or Indian markets you are taking some real risk.

The same astringency that is a concern for “bitterness” input can also lead to stomach problems, for some. I wrote about this concern awhile back related to a co-worker needing to quit tea due to stomach impact.

The short version of that writing is that it will probably be necessary to drop out drinking matcha, black tea, green tea, and sheng pu’er entirely once these problems have already developed. Prior to experiencing damage to your stomach eating food before drinking any tea could protect you, at a guess most effectively if that food contains both complex carbohydrates and fat.  Eating just fruit doesn't seem to help, based on my experience. 

There are other types of tea that are milder than these, oolongs or white teas, and routinely alternating the types of tea that you drink could help.  Drinking more whole leaf tea would be better.  Once you already have a problem switching to shu pu’er could help, or going off tea entirely for a long period of time.

Let’s get back to the starting point and think all this through one more step: who is going to be interested enough in tea to buy and read a book about the subject, and then also prepare it from Lipton or Great Value tea bags?

Vietnamese black tea, the last black tea I bought a few months ago

whole leaf tea and CTC tea (from an early blog post, before phone camera quality had improved)

I would assume that this “better quality” tea is a familiar subject to anyone reading my blog posts or Quora answers, but in case it’s not this post covered more on that divide.

Acclimating to sheng pu'er preference, to bitterness and astringency

 

one of the last sheng versions I've reviewed, but a tea from Thailand

Another Reddit post raised an interesting subject, asking why someone seemed to not like sheng pu'er, when it's regarded so positively by so many tea enthusiasts.  They framed that as asking "Is it possible that I just don't like raw pu'er tea in general?"  My comment there:

Sure, you don't like it. I didn't like it for a long time, many years, and after continually revisiting it I eventually started to explore it more, and it's been the main type I drink for the last 4 years or so. There are parts to that; I can describe them.

Acclimation to bitterness is the main factor. I hated it for a long time; it just tasted like taking an aspirin, and then eventually I was more open to it, and now it's a pleasant part of what is normal to me. It seems similar to how people don't love beer at first, or coffee, then later they tend to, unless they stop trying those, which would also make plenty of sense. I own and drink aged sheng, and own a half dozen cakes from 15-20 years old, but I mostly drink young (new) versions, often made within the last year, or beyond that of differing ages, and a good bit in between, 8-10 years old. It's all quite bitter and astringent, relative to other types, but just normal for me now. Oddly I'm more open to sourness now too, which doesn't come up much in sheng pu'er, so that's a different story.

Another part is that people often start on random sheng, so they're drinking factory versions, which are generally fairly low in quality and made of chopped up material. There wouldn't be awareness of how long versions (types) are typically aged. A Xiagun tuocha is generally challenging material, both bitter and astringent, not even close to ready to drink after a decade of aging, but a higher quality, more whole leaf, natural environment grown Yiwu or Jing Mai origin version is generally pleasant enough right away, and mellowed beyond that 2 to 4 years into aging. Storage conditions change fermentation level and that timing quite a bit; dry area or controlled environment storage can make an 8 - 10 year old tea seem equivalent to one aged for that shorter 3 to 4 year time frame in a wetter and hotter place (partly true Taiwan or Hong Kong, but it's even more exaggerated in places like Malaysia or Thailand).

Optimum brewing approaches vary by tea type, and I personally find that Western brewing isn't very suitable for sheng, and prefer high proportion and short infusion time gongfu brewing. That's not necessarily universal, maybe except that the part about approaches being adjusted for tea type is more broadly applicable. Once you really lean into bitterness preference and can tolerate a range of intensities brewing using a broader range of ways may seem positive.

Should someone develop a liking for sheng; is there a compelling reason for moving through an exploration and acclimation curve? Maybe, maybe not. It's more intense, complex, and varied than other tea types, especially since aging transition makes every tea version seem different year to year. People into sheng find the flavor ranges more appealing. But then that's not so different than for any other type. I get it why people see pu'er enthusiasts as somewhat elitist, in general, because it is a main theme that comes up. Then to me it's odd linking your own tea preference to some sort of subculture / group personality type, in any way. Group associations can be a funny thing, developing organically in different ways.

The consensus there was that it's fine to not like any given tea type, which of course works.  Then people had trouble placing why others might like a tea type that actually tastes bad to them, not just falling outside their main preference, how the acclimation process I just covered works out.

Just to add a little on the comment related to sourness, that is a more uncommon flavor inclusion in tea range, and it often relates to poor processing resulting in a flaw.  Not always though.  A fermented tea version like Japanese goishicha can be a little sour, related to normal aspect range for the type.  Atypical plant types can seem to cause this in sheng pu'er, as in the case of a purple varietal version I bought awhile back, or a local Thai wild plant version (which may not have been all Camellia Sinensis variety Assamica; who knows).  I'm more open to sourness now than years ago, but wouldn't want to drink versions with pronounced sourness too often.

that purple leaf varietal brick; it does look a little unusual

It has been interesting hearing about others experiencing the same type of acclimation that I'm describing.  An online contact is an oolong specialist and vendor, and she always claimed that she didn't care for the "energy" from pu'er, but eventually she did acclimate to drinking it, and sold it.  I guess a commercial driver comes into play for that.

A respected earlier time period tea enthusiast discussed how sheng pu'er was popular 20 years ago partly because it was inexpensive, so a lot of the image around it has changed completely, almost the opposite of what it had been.  The greater demand of the "pu'er bubble" changed everything, when buying that tea type and holding it as an investment changed things, around the 2005 time-frame.

New styles changed things again, as factory tea versions gave way in popularity to milder, more whole leaf, often natural environment grown, higher quality "boutique" versions, which come in a broad range of forms now.  Thai, Laos, and Vietnamese versions made in these newer, more approachable styles probably almost didn't exist a decade ago, and production volume of any South East Asian sheng pu'er (or pu'er-like tea, depending on one's acceptance of the Chinese regional designation of the type name) was quite limited, even that recently.

My most recent post describes a main step in my own acclimation process, getting exploration wrong, as it worked out, related to a role that good input plays in that path:

In one of my first exposures to differing tea types a local Chinese-Thai woman was selling sheng pu'er...  About 10 years ago I bought a cake of modestly priced "young" or new factory sheng at that shop to drink, to explore and acclimate to the type...  It was probably roughly as poor a choice as I could've made, quite harsh without significant aging input.  Still, it worked out; I acclimated to bitterness, some, and went on to explore oolongs more, returning to sheng exposure and preference some years later...

If back then I had bought any of the current Wawee origin area Thai teas I've been drinking several versions of over the last year that probably would've went quite differently.  Those tend to be less bitter, softer in feel character, sweeter, more aromatic, with pleasant floral and fruit tones.  Yunnan Sourcing--or lots of outlets now, really--sells better quality in-house versions in a broader range now, many a bit more traditional in style than what I've been trying from Thailand and Vietnam over the past few months.  Those are still not as challenging as factory versions made in the earlier conventional style, which is still fine, they just need significant age to soften some rough edges, per my preference.

What does it mean for a tea to be brisk?

first published in TChing here

I answered a Quora question about what it means for a tea to not be brisk, here, which I'll convert into the opposite, a summary of what "briskness" in tea actually means.  To me it either means bright in flavor and character or else astringent (possessing a mouth-feel) in such a way that is appealing, having a feel that is sharp in a particular positive way.  To me the latter is really the core meaning.  Could the two overlap?  Sure; I'll get to that.

A particular feel range does tend to pair with a general flavor and character intensity, or rather multiple variations of both tend to correspond in different tea types and forms. As you experience a slight sharpness in mouthfeel--not harshness, which would be a flaw--you also tend to experience a brightness or intensity in flavor range. It’s not as if they have to be combined, but it tends to work out like that.  Probably we are mostly talking about black tea, which will be implied in a lot of the following, but more explicit in certain ways related to the cause.  After talking through some basic meaning and experience range related to types this will get to root causes and compounds causing related effects.

Green tea often possesses a very different but typical astringency (feel), but to ask about an oolong being brisk makes no sense. Oolong is a broad category, that varies quite a bit in range, but versions tend to be full in feel, rich, or even creamy. Some contain an astringency that’s different than in black teas, but how that works out, and related to what inputs, and how positive that is, is all a bit complicated to add as a tangent.  The main types of oolongs, Tie Guan Yin, Wuyi Yancha, Dan Cong, Taiwanese high mountain rolled oolongs and Oriental Beauty, are all not particularly rough in feel / astringent.  Only off-area Guangdong oolongs I've tried are like that, which I won't go further into here.

A black tea that isn’t brisk might just relate to a different style of black tea not being like that. Yunnan style black tea, Dian Hong, or a related sun-dried variation of those, Shai Hong, are not brisk. The form of astringency is different, and the set of typical flavors. So we’re now down to talking conventional black teas, like those from Assam and Sri Lanka, with typical Assam character including more of that range. Darjeeling can even fall by the wayside a bit; for lots of those being oxidized to different levels aspect range tends to vary, and what we often mean by a positive “briskness” input doesn’t tend to apply.

Whole leaf tea in general possesses far different astringency character than ground up or broken black tea. Flavor range aspects vary too, not in such a narrow set of ways that it’s easy to map it all out. I just drank a very pleasant Georgian black tea for a review and in one sense it wasn’t brisk; astringency was moderate. But flavors were quite distinct and intense, so if someone was using the terms in a different way than I do they might judge it differently.

Greengold Georgian black tea; too whole-leaf to be very astringent

One last aside before getting to more direct cause inputs:  how could there be differences in how a basic description term is used for tea? Aspects tend to adjoin and mix, and then without a centralized form of definitions other usage variation can creep in. Here’s a standard simple definition from a main commercial vendor, Harney and Sons:

Briskness - Refers to a tea’s ability to make your mouth pucker, also known as astringency.

So for them it just means astringency. I take that to be right, but common usage also implies connection to other tea character, even though it’s really a different aspect range (eg. flavor intensity, or certain flavor range).

Let’s consider if a specialized use of the term couldn’t have evolved within a research context in India:

UPASI TEA RESEARCH FOUNDATION

The major quality parameters that are tested in made tea include Theaflavins (TF), Thearubigins (TR), High polymerized substances (HPS), Total liquor color (TLC) and Total soluble solids (Water extract). TF has a direct correlation with quality and price realization. TF contribute towards the briskness and brightness of tea liquor…

In addition to the above quality parameters briskness and color indices developed at UPASI TRI, correlate well with quality of made tea. Briskness index is given as percent ratio of TF to TF+CAF and the normal range for south Indian CTC tea is above 23.

Theaflavins and thearubigins are complex compounds found in black teas, outputs of an oxidation process as other types of complex compounds are converted to those. This Tea Epicure site reference covers all of the main types of compounds found in tea, and more on those in particular:

Chemical Compounds in Tea

There are several known categories within polyphenols. Flavonoids are arguably the most important category; they are the reason for many health claims surrounding tea because they contain antioxidants.

Within the flavonoid group are flavanols, flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, and anthocyanins. Flavanols (short for flavan-3-ols) are the most prevalent and thus the most studied. Flavanols are often referred to as tannins or catechins. The major flavanols in tea are: catechin (C), epicatechin (EC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), gallocatechin (GC), epigallocatechin (EGC), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the most active of the catechins, and this flavanol is often the subject of studies regarding tea antioxidants.

Flavanols are converted to theaflavins and thearubigins during oxidation. They are the compounds responsible for the dark color and robust flavors that are present in oxidized teas.

The reference to color, flavor, and feel (implied in explaining that these are what is referred to as “tannins”) starts in on unpacking why it’s a good thing that certain feel range increases, because flavor range also does. People tend not to value certain colors in tea without training or experience in associating them with other experience, but that links too.

So, heading towards a conclusion, there are two types of discussions about the positive level and role of briskness, depending on the tea type, origin, presentation form (chopped vs. whole leaf), and related to varying use of terms. Describing a tea as brisk or not has two completely different meanings, depending on whether that’s an expected positive input range in the first place. For CTC (ground up leaf) black tea Assam a version had better be brisk (astringent in a particular sense, to a particular expected level), and for Chinese or Taiwanese whole leaf black teas in general they’re just not, because levels of related compounds are moderate, by design.

Astringency still plays a very important role in judging the quality of those teas, and the role and form is comparable. A black tea lacking astringency, in the different sense of fullness and structure, wouldn’t be as positive. It’s just that very positive versions of such teas wouldn’t be described as brisk, because astringency and related compounds are much more moderate, and probably quite different in proportion, at least in relation to those providing the most feel edge / rough feel.

If further reading on types to clarify this is of interest I reviewed a very pleasant Chinese black tea recently, that I wouldn’t describe as brisk, with a lot of detailed commentary about feel range in that review:  Wuyi Origin Wuyishan benefit black tea.

Just to offset this seeming biased towards Chinese versus Indian teas I also reviewed two fantastic, very well regarded Darjeeling second flush black tea versions this month, with very comparable observations in that review:  Arya Ruby and Giddapahar Second Flush Darjeelings.

None of those three teas I've just mentioned would I describe as brisk, but the mouthfeel properties in all three are different.  To me a brisk tea balances on the edge of being rough in feel and intense in warm flavor range, towards aromatic wood tones, without going far enough that it seems better to add milk to delete out that effect.  CTC teas, ground black tea versions, tend to cross that divide, and be more positive drank with milk added, and I suppose good plantation origin Assam is an example of what is right at that edge.  Really good orthodox Assam tends to be more like Chinese black tea, full in feel but smoother yet in character, with this main plantation Halmari version back at the slightly rougher edge but still balancing it well.

two phone cameras back the pictures weren't all that clear

Again I'm a Chinese black tea drinker, mainly, also open to Darjeeling and Nepal versions in different styles that are comparable in quality, so I'm not seeking out the more intense but rougher range of experience right at that edge.  Trying a more brisk black tea could be interesting but I'm fine with almost never experiencing what I interpret as in that range.  And I mostly drink sheng pu'er, which is very diverse related to complex mouthfeel range, but in a different set of ways that wouldn't be described as briskness.