Bamboo leaf tea

Other things that involve bamboo

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Rufledt
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Location: South WI

Bamboo leaf tea

Post by Rufledt »

Hey everyone, has anybody tried making bamboo tea? I had some when I was in Korea and i'm trying to replicate it. I found a couple 'recipes' online, they involve either just drying the leaves and letting them steep for longer than traditional tea, or a roasting type process.

The recipe I tried involved taking the leaves fresh off the plant. I found a branch freshly broken off of my spectabilis by accident with enough leaves for 1 cup of tea. I pulled the leaves off and washed them in my sink. I haven't sprayed the leaves with anything, but it's still a good idea. Then I 'dry roasted' the leaves on a non stick pan over the oven. I moved them around constantly so nothing burned until they dried and started browning just a bit. Then I crushed them into a screen thingy (don't know what it's called) and steeped it in water from a teapot for about 10 minutes. It tasted a bit more 'burned' than I remember. There was also an overtone of eggs, the previous hundred meals cooked in the pan, despite my vigorous scrubbing. I steeped the same leaves again in another cup for longer, the taste was a little different but the previous overtones remained (burned a little, some eggs).

Has anyone experimented with this? Other things I'm going to try include using younger leaves, just using air dried leaves, and trying some other species. In korea they use sasamorpha borealis tea for some health benefits, so i'm going to try to get a hold of that species. I just used spectabilis because the branch was broken off anyway.
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foxd
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Re: Bamboo leaf tea

Post by foxd »

This is probably obvious, but different types of bamboo will produce differently flavored teas. Some of the bamboo teas I've read about have been made with Sasa veitchii (very popular), Fargesia (described as sweet), Bambusa and Moso.
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