A Musical Analogy of Tea

A Musical Analogy:
This is still a work in progress, but I think if you could imagine such an abstract concept that tea is music, and that each tea type (eg: green, oolong, black) is like a different genre (classical, punk, electronic); and each song in these genres is a separate individual tea, this article should be fairly easy to follow.

Volume (Ratio):
When listening to music, certain genres are appreciable at different volume levels. With orchestral music, turning the volume dial to the loudest is great but it can also be very enjoyable at the lowest volumes as well. I wonder consider orchestral music to very flexible in its range of enjoyable volumes. Punk rock is great loud, but doesn’t make a lot of sense to me at low volumes. Of course each person has their own preference for how loud they like their music, and no one can be right or wrong.

That being said, I think tea is very comparable. Sometimes tea is great ‘loud’ and sometimes it’s better ‘quiet’. Of course there is a subjective element to it, but I think you can apply objective reasoning to persuade someone to change their point of view, perhaps to gain a level of enjoyment they may be oblivious to. Turning up the volume on a song can sometimes bring out minor details that camouflage in the back.

How you would adjust the volume dial on your tea is rather simple: brew the tea with more or less leaves. The ratio of tea to water is the volume dial, and it is the most important factor to me.

Tempo (Brew Time):
With music we don’t usually adjust the tempo (how fast the song plays), but on virtually all devices that will play back music these days, adjusting the tempo is just a couple clicks away from potentially ruining your experience. The artists who make the music play it at a specific pace because it’s what they want, and to them it sounds the best (and probably to you too!). What if music didn’t have a standardized playback speed? What if whenever you played a song it started with extremely slow tempo and you had to manually adjust it to the speed to a level which you enjoy? Well unfortunately tea is a manual adjustment every time. What a pain! The infusion time (how long you leave the tea leaf in contact with the water) is how I would describe the tempo of a song. There will be a sweet spot when the song plays at the perfect ‘proper’ speed, perhaps different for everyone, perhaps not!

A quick steep of tea shows you the entirety of the song and every sip you take will replay that song in your mouth. The quicker the steep the slower the tempo of the song, too quick of a steep will play the song too slowly for you to know where you are. There will be a range of time where the song plays at an enjoyable speed. Over brewing will play the song too fast and a similar problem to under brewing will present itself.

I want to segue for a second into what I think is a great example of this:
Call me Maybe (1000% Slower) – Carly Rae Jepsen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSxquE6VDiQ

I’ll admit it, I like the standard version of this song, it’s super catchy. If you play it at the standard speed it sounds fine at ‘reasonable volumes’, and great when it’s ear shattering loud, but if you slow it down 1000% it’s 32 minutes of bizarre ambient noises which sound much better at low volumes. The slowed down version is great at really low volumes but comes off annoying as hell really high volumes. There is a balancing act that volume and tempo have to perform with each other; if you change one aspect the other should change too.

Sound Equalization (Water Temperature and Others):
This is a hard one to draw an analogy to.. I would put water temperature in the same category that tea ware and water composition (minerality, hardness, pH, etc) bring to the equation. All of these factors together are something like the equalizer. Hotter water will ‘increase the bass’ so to speak, sometimes to the point where bass is all you hear. I would argue that if there is an actual song that someone intended for you to hear but you can’t because the bass is so loud that it drowns out everything else, you’re listening to it wrong. That’s just my opinion though.

Using mineral rich water, clay tea cups, and various other tea paraphernalia to brew and enjoy tea from is like fine tuning the equalization settings on a song. That’s above and beyond what most people would do for music, but when they go to a show where a professional is behind all of the sound engineering I believe that their experience will be elevated compared to what they are used to.

How it all comes together:
Me saying that a teas ‘volume’ is great between 1g:56ml and 1g:68ml but best at precisely 1:62, and the ‘tempo’ is great between 1m30s and 1m45s but best at 1m38s at a steeping temperature of 86 degrees celcius with calcium and iron rich water probably comes off as being ridiculous and pretentious as fuck. From the perspective of a ‘sound engineer’ though, someone who strives for the audiences maximum enjoyment and has reasoning to explain why the music should be presented that way should come off as refreshing and a special experience.

In this particular example:
If this tea is brewed weaker than 1:75 I think it’s alright but too watery,
at 1:75 I think it’s good but watery,
at 1:68 I think it’s good and the ‘watery’ descriptor detaches.
I am progressing like this ————>|

Going from the other side of the spectrum
At 1:25 the tea is too potent, the sour flavors stand out like crazy and it leaves a tingling sensation on the tongue, no good.
at 1:50 the tea is good, I don’t find it sour, but I think the richness of the tea covers up a lot of the aromatics
at 1:56 the richness of the tea is toned down, more of the aromatics come through and I think it’s good
I am progressing like this |<——-

Eventually I am going to have these 2 bars meet each other where I get the best of both worlds. Where the richness meets the fragrance in a wonderful balance.

————>|x|<——-

I am ‘listening’ to the tea at the ‘best volume’ and I can explain my reasons why. Someone else might disagree as their perceptions are likely different from mine, in that case I would welcome them to do a similar experiment and find the volume level they prefer. Subjectively I could be faulted, but objectively I don’t think so.

Now that I have established the volume, I can adjust the tempo. In regards to steeping time: 2 minutes was fine, 3 minutes was too long, 1 minute was the best. How about 1m30s? It was better than 1m and better than 2m. How about 1m45s? It was not as good as 1m30s but better than 2m. Alright — 1m38s is better than 1:30 and 1:45. I’ll settle for that as the ‘best tempo’

Now to adjust the equalizer, does this tea taste better from glass or clay? does this tea taste better with iron and calcium rich water? neutral filtered water? tap water? boiled in iron, silver, stainless steel?
Once all of the details have been tuned with a specific intent in mind (whether they were tuned by an amateur or professional) the tea will be the best to that individual. Even if another person subjectively disagreed, I think they would objectively appreciate what has been accomplished by the creator.

Rant about ignorance:
If someone enjoys listening to a song at the recommended tempo, changing the tempo to 10% faster or slower probably wont completely ruin it for them. Some people might prefer it a bit faster, some people might not even notice if it was faster. Sometimes people enjoy having chaotic loud sounds banging in their heads?

That last part was hyperbole, at least to me. Who would listen to random bullshit noise? There has got to be a point where subjectivity stops and objectivity takes control, even for the least discerning person. Therefore I think we as tea professionals are obligated to discuss a teas brewing parameters (such as steeping time or ratio) with accompanying information about how an increase or decrease in them will affect what a person should be looking for, and ultimately justification on why we do what we do. Is that going too far? I don’t think so, but the fine tuning is a lot of work.

Thanks for reading!