Tea used as brew water?

So in an effort to not drink anymore today (extremely tired and want to stay awake) i am drinking a bigass pot of lapsang souchong tea. it's a black tea that has been smoked. i love the hell out of this stuff and would drink it by the gallon. It got me thinking, why can't i brew about 5-6gal of LS tea and use that for my brew water? I searched the database, but all i could come up with was "hop tea" and "hard tea" in the results.

So my theory is, wouldn't a smoked tea make a really nice rauchbier?

Can anyone give me some insight here? I'm having a hard time deciding on my next brew and every time i read something or drink something new i want to make that recipe.

Too much tannins, probably. You can make wine with it if you choose to, but I've heard a lot of negative reports of making tea-wine.

check out the book sacred herbal and healing beers....no reason it wouldn't work like many of those recipes....

Quite a few people use spiced tea infusions in various beers, quite a few use pumpkin spiced tea in their pumpkin ales, and there is even a bergamont beer thread on here using Earl Grey.

Now those folks are using the tea as flavoring, not as their brew water, so I don't know if it would work or not, but it would be interesting to try, you could do a 1 gallon or 2.5 gallon test batch and see. You might be breaking ground here.

Revvy said:

Quite a few people use spiced tea infusions in various beers, quite a few use pumpkin spiced tea in their pumpkin ales, and there is even a bergamont beer thread on here using Earl Grey.

Now those folks are using the tea as flavoring, not as their brew water, so I don't know if it would work or not, but it would be interesting to try, you could do a 1 gallon or 2.5 gallon test batch and see. You might be breaking ground here.

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well i'm well read enough to know i won't be breaking ground, but the results you listed match my own research into it.

i'm due for a visit to the LHBS anyway and the wife has offered the buy me some ingredients as part of my Xmas gift (i went above and beyond...again). Maybe i will do that and pick up the 3gal carboy while i'm at it and make a real go of it. Maybe brew it double strength tea and add some smoked malt?

keep the feedback coming people. i didnt think i'd get such a good response.

BTW...my choices for next brew are:
- Roggenbier or other rye ale
- jaggery pale ale loosely based on my own quinoa/jaggery ale and the recipe in Radical Brewing
- a ridiculously hopped really pale ale
- Leffe blonde style clone (the wife has requested that i brew! sweet!)
- perhaps a lapsang souchong bier?

I recently dry-tead? a Blonde with good results, my only worry would be boiling the tea for an extended period of time. But let us know how it goes!

fineexampl said:

So in an effort to not drink anymore today (extremely tired and want to stay awake) i am drinking a bigass pot of lapsang souchong tea.

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Sir, you have great tastes in tea!
I've nothing intellegent to add to this but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

if the tannins are not a problem when you drink the tea (if you can't taste them) why would the become a problem later? (assuming you take the tea bags after you have made the tea)

t

I put a 1/2 pound of yerba mate loose leaf tea straight into the tail end of a porter boil and it was too much! Way too bitter. Next time I think Ill brew up a half gallon of tea separately and dump in it at flameout.

bonsai4tim said:

if the tannins are not a problem when you drink the tea (if you can't taste them) why would the become a problem later? (assuming you take the tea bags after you have made the tea)

t

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I use black tea for tannins when I make wine. Black tea has a lot of tannins. OP wants to use black tea. When you boil it, tannins are released. To get around this, one could probably try to cold-brew tea or make an iced tea with it. I've made a small batch of wine with tea before and it turns out bitter and almost flavorless. I'd only really use tea as an extra layer of flavor (like spices).

I made an Earl Grey Cinnamon Braggot. It is still pretty hot with higher alcohols, but getting past the need to age, it has a very nice background taste I can attribute to the Earl Grey.

I didn't boil the tea, it was steeped, and no squeeze of the bags.

magnj said:

I recently dry-tead? a Blonde with good results, my only worry would be boiling the tea for an extended period of time. But let us know how it goes!

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now that might work if none of the smoke flavor comes through after fermentation. i hadn't thought of it. it's a good backup plan at least.

Let me get this straight for my own knowledge, if you make a large batch of tea beforehand, via steeping it in hot water and then removing the leaves, and then boil that newly made tea, it would still release tannins?

SFsorrow said:

Sir, you have great tastes in tea!
I've nothing intellegent to add to this but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

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tea is good stuff so long as it's not crappy low grade tea dust (lipton).

SFsorrow said:

Let me get this straight for my own knowledge, if you make a large batch of tea beforehand, via steeping it in hot water and then removing the leaves, and then boil that newly made tea, it would still release tannins?

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No it shouldn't. That's part of the beauty of what i was getting at. Some tannins are fine and perfectly normal without tea, yea? If i made a triple strength tea after primary is about done and racked onto the cooled super-tea, it should be smoky as hell. i have no problem with that.

DavidSteel said:

I use black tea for tannins when I make wine. Black tea has a lot of tannins. OP wants to use black tea. When you boil it, tannins are released. To get around this, one could probably try to cold-brew tea or make an iced tea with it. I've made a small batch of wine with tea before and it turns out bitter and almost flavorless. I'd only really use tea as an extra layer of flavor (like spices).

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yeah well first rule of tea is never add leaves to boiling water. no rule against boiling ready to go drinkable tea.

trip3commy said:

I put a 1/2 pound of yerba mate loose leaf tea straight into the tail end of a porter boil and it was too much! Way too bitter. Next time I think Ill brew up a half gallon of tea separately and dump in it at flameout.

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yerba mate is strong anyway. personally i find the stuff disgusting, but people like it by itself.