jguy898

Recipes 

I've read that various teas are very good ways to add tannins to a mead.
I'm going to be starting a 5 gallons batch of Clover Honey Cinnamon and Vanilla mead here soon and wonder if anyone knows what kinds of tea may be a good match to this flavor of Metheglin?

Jonas

fatbloke

Recipes 

I suspect you're mixing up the use of the word "tea". A lot of the "herbal infusions" don't contain any tea at all, and the various dried leaves, herbs etc, don't have much, if any, tannin.

As I understand it, "proper black tea" is what's usually meant to be added. Something like an "English Breakfast Tea" or similar should definitely do the job, though I'd suspect that any half decent strong indian black tea will be fine.

Something like 2 teaspoons of tea leaves or 2 teabags per half pint of boiling water, then just let it stew, stirring occasionally and let it go cold and then just add it in with the water part of the must.

regards

fatbloke

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YoungBerry

Recipes 

How does that affect the taste of the mead? The tea, that is. As much as I love a good Tea, Earl Gray, Hot, I don't think I want that kind of taste in my mead. At all.

jguy898

Recipes 

No, I mean actual Tea. As in Earl Grey tea, Oolong Tea and/or Black tea (English Breakfast).

Jonas

Rockape66

Recipes 

I used oolong myself. The tea flavors don't come through in the tea, unless you use some kind of herbal infusion. The yeasts gobble the tea up for nutrients. I've thought about using something like chamomile or a berry tea(black, blue, raspberry) to the secondary for some gentle notes though.

Slainte, Mack