Learning Hop flavors with Hop Teas

Another episode where we try to get a better handle on what the different ingredients bring to our brews. This time, we’re tasting hop teas.

To make the hop tea, we steeped .25oz of hops in 8oz of the pale malt tea that we made in our Grain Tea episode (you can also use water), for 20 minutes. We used a muslin bag to filter the hop particles out, it’s suggested to use whole hops instead of pellets, and next time I think we’ll try to run it through a coffee press to get even more particulate out. The little bits that made it through burned a little on the throat and / or tongue.

We got our inspiration from Schoolhouse Brewing’s video on Hop Teas.

Chris talks a little bit about a neat gift he received, the Hop Box Subscription from Yakama Valley Hops. I couldn’t find a link to the subscription itself, but check out the site at a later time and maybe they’ll populate it.

The hops we used are listed below, along with some great descriptions from FreshHops.

Cascade – Flowers, citrus & spice with notes of grapefruit

Saaz – Described as “An aromatic blend of earth and spice with a low bittering value”.

Columbus (Tomahawk / Zeus – CTZ) – (More of a Bittering Hops) “an interesting dichotomy of sharp and herbal”.

Centennial – “Flowers and citrus are the most evident aromas.  It has a medium aroma with mid to high bittering value. Often times referred to as Super Cascade”.

Chris brought along a pale ale he made with Enigma, which is an entirely different hop family than the hops we’re used to. Unfortunately, our camera decided it had enough recording for the night, and Chris’s explanation was cut off prematurely. We’re going to have to try and have him back on the show sometime to explain the different families of hops again.

This was an interesting experiment, and I think we’re going to try to do it again with some other varieties of hops. Let us know what you thought about it.