Bezzera Strega... for tea

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Lord Fluff
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#1: Post by Lord Fluff »

Yes, yes, I know, tea is hardly the number one reason to go for a Strega, hence in all the debates about the machine understandably no-one mentions the performance regards making a humble cup of tea.....

As a possible replacement for my misbehaving Brewtus, any future machine has to do dual duty as a tea / hot water machine, so can anyone with a Strega let me know if it's possible to make two decent sized mugs of tea (say around 350ml each) at one visit to the machine?

Thanks all

Beaniac
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Joined: 9 years ago

#2: Post by Beaniac »

Boiler water out of a HX is not for tea IMO.

Keep your machine very clean and you can use water out of the group. But I prefer kettle boiled or clean tap water steamed up to temp with the steamwand.
And yes a strega can steam 700cc's of water up to temp on its slippers.

erik82
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#3: Post by erik82 »

You can do that with a Strega when looking at the volume but not if you plan to use it for espresso right after that. I disrupts the machine balance for some time.

I personally would never take tea-water from an espressomachine. It makes the tea just as bad as using 3 year old preground coffee for espresso on a Strega. Just use the water kettle if you like tea.

DanoM
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#4: Post by DanoM »

Is there a benefit to the water kettle over steam boiling the water? That's a question I haven't seen addressed.
(Of course we aren't talking about iron kettles, reactions and the like. Just a stainless kettle compared to steamed water.)

The Strega will heat a liter of water quite easily. The boiler will take a while to recover from that, but I've done it many times before.
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nickw
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#5: Post by nickw »

As people mention, pulling boiler water out of the machine isn't ideal. It can both taste off and can cause recovery delays.

Although there is an alternative: Use the steam wand to heat a pitcher of water.
This skips over both negatives and you get "fresh" hot water, made in short order.

Cheers.

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CrabRangoon
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#6: Post by CrabRangoon »

I've never understood how people can be so passionate about coffee that they opt into costly (or rather, not "budget" priced) grinders / scales / machines; but when it comes to tea they're completely happy foregoing the repeatable exact scientific extraction process. I may be in a small percentile here, because I know that most people who aren't nuts for tea are perfectly happy using pre-bagged tea rather than fresh bulk tea - but I've never brewed tea better than with my Bonavita Gooseneck Variable Temperature kettle (programmable per degree C/F) & Acaia Pearl (doubles as both my scale & timer).

The same combo is perfect for pour-over / Aeropress brewing as well, but really doesn't get mentioned enough for tea. The kettle fluctuates between $65-80 depending on if you find it on sale and you could easily get by with a cheaper scale or one that's already sitting in your kitchen. Different temperature requirements between white, green, black, herbal etc; though perhaps you only drink one kind; make the PID kettle far more usable IMO than wanting your espresso machine boiler to come down to tea-friendly temps / heating water in a vessel using your steam wand. Not trying to take away from the Strega though - by all means, upgrade to that when you can :lol:
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DanoM
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#7: Post by DanoM »

I feel you for tea! It's never been a favorite here in the USA since that Boston party 200+ years ago.

Since we drink Japanese green tea mostly; temps are a big issue along with warming the cups, teapot and the like. If you steep it too hot, like fresh boiling water, good flavors evaporate and bitter flavors abound.
We start out at 60c, next round is hotter 65-70c, next round hotter at 70-75c, if there's a last round and the tea has flavor left that's at 80c. A kettle won't do all that for us, but we use a cooling pot for bringing things down within range.
No, we're not going to the trouble of heating the water in an iron kettle, although it does make a difference, but it's either from a stainless kettle or from freshly steam boiled on the Strega if that's on and then into a thermos.
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another_jim
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#8: Post by another_jim »

Zojis are inexpensive, and refined to perfection for tea drinking over the last sixty years by about a billion users. :) If you enjoy tea, or need hot water on tap, why bother with anything else?
Jim Schulman

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CrabRangoon
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#9: Post by CrabRangoon replying to another_jim »

I had 3 Zojis over the years before I switched to the Bonavita - they're great, problem-free (just needs regular descaling) and long-lived, but they definitely take up a bit of counter space if it becomes a permanent fixture in your kitchen. A new Zoji unit with a few pre-programmed temp selections still costs more than the PID Bonavita, and for dual coffee/tea duty the gooseneck kettle makes pouring exact volumes much easier than the Zoji was - even with the "slow drip" button on my Zoji.
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FotonDrv
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#10: Post by FotonDrv »

I use the bonavita for tea and pour over Chemex coffee as well. Set the temperature you want and you have water quickly.

The boiler on my espresso machine is a 7L boiler and could easily do it but the water temp might not be perfect for the tea.
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