Brewing tea in stainless thermos

[qrn]

I have been drinking a ti kwan yin for a while and started brewing it in a pot heated with hot water, etc, and then went to a large mug/cup also heated beforehand..and then transfering to my drinking cup..

.While rooting around in the kitchen I found a

mug that was about 20 0z. It is a stainless steel"thermos" style thing.

I found that I could pour the hot water over the TKY, in the mug, and let it brew for the alotted time with almost no temp change, and then put a mesh basket in the top of it and pour the resulting liquid into my drinking cup...The leaves stayed in the "thermos" thing and were re steeped as needed...

This saved much time heating the pot or cup to maintain temps...

Just thought I would mention this in case someone else had one of these "thermos type mugs around....

Bud

[Richard Kilgore]

Interesting. Just today I was thinking about getting an insulated travel mug for drinking tea out of rather than for brewing like you are. I think for either use that glass-lined will work better than stainless steel simply because it is easier to clean out the tea stain that builds up rapidly.

What kind of pot were you using before and can you tell any difference in the finished tea?

And do let us know how this ss "teapot" works for you over time.

[haresfur]

Interesting. Just today I was thinking about getting an insulated travel mug for drinking tea out of rather than for brewing like you are. I think for either use that glass-lined will work better than stainless steel simply because it is easier to clean out the tea stain that builds up rapidly.

What kind of pot were you using before and can you tell any difference in the finished tea?

And do let us know how this ss "teapot" works for you over time.

←

I thought "tea stain" was supposed to be good stuff. Or to be politically correct, "patina".

[qrn]

.

What kind of pot were you using before and can you tell any difference in the finished tea?

And do let us know how this ss "teapot" works for you over time.

←

I was using a garden variety porcelain tea pot,and the cup I used after was an ordinary large(20+oz) glazed mug...

Since the interior of the "thermos" mug is stainless, I dont think there should be any effect on the tea flavors from the ss...The real benefit, I think is the time saved in heating things up to maintain temps..

For later steeps it seems to save even more time/effort

Bud

[Richard Kilgore]

I can see how that would save time and effort. Do let us know how it goes over using it for several months.

I have seen similar set ups in glass or in glass lined thermos-style containers. I'll see if I can find them again and post a link.

[Dave Hatfield]

I'm not so sure about all of this.

I don't think you can beat a porcelain pot, pre-heated and scalded, then covered with a thick tea cozy.

Stainless may be OK being more inert, but silver definitely changes the taste of the tea. My wife who is from the North of England has proved this numerous time in blind tastings for skeptical visitors.

Still, the proof is in the tasting. If the tea is still good I guess anything that works - works.

[Richard Kilgore]

The TGYs actually show their best in a well-matched Yixing tea pot. When I switched from a fine porcelain gaiwan to one particular Yixing the difference was not subtle.

But to each their own.

[qrn]

That was the reason for my original sub title on the original post ,that they took off,,, "Duck!Incoming" was a reference to the heresy that I am suggesting......LOL!!! It seems to make My morning tea ritual lots easier to do...and makes the TGY much easier to do on a daily basis...

Bud

[Richard Kilgore]

I don't think it's as much a heresy as you think it is. There are all sorts of brewing vessels and methods today. Whatever works for you.

Not to say there aren't different results and different tea brewing and drinking experiences depending on the equipment and method.

[andiesenji]

Somewhere in my collection, I have a stainless vacuum pot that came with a tea "cage" that is simply a long cylinder with a ring on the top/lid so it can be removed easily and the regular top screws into the mouth of the pot and is then covered by the "cup." It holds a quart and is rounded and squatty, rather than a long cylinder like the regular "thermos" containers and I think it was made by Aladdin, although I could be wrong. At the time I bought it (mid-to-late '70s) there were several "new" stainless vacuum bottles coming into the market, some had wide mouths, for soups and etc.

Later in the '80s, Nissan also marketed a stainless vacuum bottle that came with several "tea socks" that could be inserted into the bottle and had strings that trailed outside so they could be removed. I didn't purchase one of these but a friend did as the one I had purchased some ten years earlier had been discontinued.

It is true that stainless with develop a "patina" of tea residue over time but a couple of drops of bleach into the bottle filled with water will take care of that with no problem.

(I use the same procedure to remove similar stains from all of my porcelain and other non-porous tea ware with excellent results.) Needless to say never on unglazed tea ware.

I have seen the stainless vacuum bottles on ebay and once did see one with the wire mesh tea brewer intact.