Comment by Enginerrrd
19 days ago
One thing I noticed is that the water matters.
I noted that when visiting my sister down in the Bay Area, I had to steep for quite a bit less time before the bitter tannins would start creeping in. Like 1.5-2 mins tops for cheap PG Tips. But that same tea up north could sit for 3-4 minutes before the bitter tannins would creep in.
It was a marked difference so there are obviously some confounding factors. I suspect the water chemistry matters a fair amount.
Other solutes in the water, like calcium chloride, can indeed greatly affect the solubility curves of the flavor compounds.
You can buy premixed packages of salts to dissolve into distilled water to precisely reproduce the composition of the well waters of some famous breweries, even though the result mostly still tastes like water.