To rinse or not to rinse ...
To rinse or not to rinse is a question all tea enthusiasts will have to consider. Veteran tea drinkers and groups often have their own approach to the rinse and the reasoning behind it. Sellers like to use the “no rinse” tag to imply that their tea is premium/clean/good which may or may not be the case. The more relatable justification for many tea drinkers is the feeling of guilt and waste. Whilst at the opposite end is the determination to capture the best experience aligned to serving optimal brews from mid-steeps. For those who are unable to appreciate the finer details the topic becomes altogether futile. Perhaps one should not be surprised that in this strange world there is an odd fixation amongst some tea drinkers of old tea who take pleasure in drinking the frosting that is the accumulation of external residue. Other odd beliefs and intent are out there for which I will leave you to discover on your journey.
For myself the reasoning is quite simple, I find that rinsing makes for a better and more enjoyable tea session. Furthermore, as someone who is exposed to many teas of varying quality, I feel safer with the rinse. I will share a quiet truth that is rarely mentioned for the benefit of those who are not aware. The tea leaves are never washed (regardless of their quality), from the moment the tea leaves are harvested, processed and packaged. When you visit a tea factory, picture the picking of tea leaves into stained weaved baskets, the tossing and kneading at different workstations, tea leaves being spread out in open spaces and left for hours/days at intervals, the funky nature of the fermentation process, the inside of a warehouse or traditional (wet) stored facility and thereafter the years and decades in storage for age tea. All these proceedings (which I have not gone into detail) contribute to a layer of external frosting that essentially is an accumulation of dirt and fermented/storage residue amongst other things. That said each tea should be judged individually, whether it is no rinse or a single/double rinse as a mindful tea drinker the decision is yours to make.
