Heating water on charcoal- part one: Charcoal

 Lately, there were few people asking "how do you do it"? I also owe this kind of manual to several customers, who have bought from us stove, ceramic kettle or both. Whikle reading this post please keep in mind that all my advices and conclusions are based on my quite short experiences. I am still learning, but I am happy to share what I have already learned.


Warrning: This is the longest post in history of this blog. And maybe boring, but for some of you. hopefully helpful 

I cut this topic in two parts. In this part I am going to share my findings about charcoal itself. The part two will be focused on our braziers (stoves) and ceramic kettles.
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But imporatant note first: Before I will start with the topic itself, I have to say: When using charcoal for heating, take safety precautions as with any other fire.

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Why to use charcoal?

Why to use charcoal for heating tea water? To make it simple, I usually say that it helps to make our tea time complete. The quality of water, its composition and energy, is crucial. On the other hand, the way how we bring it to boil is more subtle. For me, there are few important points why I prefer charcoal to other sources of heat.

- I like to play with fire
- It improves my water
- It gives natural rhythm to my tea time

Choosing the charcoal

When looking for the right charcoal, you will probably have to hunt and make some tests first. I think it is always better to use a local product, especially if it is available in adequate quality. Historically, each tradition used charcoal which was, first of all, available. If there was choice then they chose the one which improved the water-tea most or/and which worked best for their way of brewing tea. Then braziers (stoves) were made in order to work with this charcoal. These days we can order a particular charcoal from all around the world, which is great. But I believe it is worth to try to follow the natural way. Before you order olive pits charcoal from China or cherry one from Japan, try ones from a local producers. Maybe you are going to be surprised how good one you will find.

After several tests of several different charcoals I keep using Czech oak one. The maker says that it is "exclusive, single wood charcoal with 80% of carbon". Truth is that, compare to cheaper and not exclusive ones, it is cleaner, produces less smoke, less smell and it burns longer. By cleaner I don't mean just coal dust. When I used some cheap (no name charcoals) there were always pieces of bark, resins and some kinds of gross (slag). And all those imperfections mean more smoke and less comfort.

Some people use a charcoal briquettes sold for water-pipes as CoCoBrico or Bamboocha. Those are clean, available in stable quality and are supposedly smokeless. Some tealovers like them very much. I prefer to use real pieces of carbonized wood then compressed pulp of some exotic material. But this is just my point of view...

Cleaning before using...

I find this step very helpful a I skip it only when I am really lazy or busy or both. When I open new bag with charcoal I proceed it this way: First I transfer charcoal into plastic crate (no in the house, much better to do it outside if it is possible) and brake all too big pieces. By too big I mean too big for my stove. I also try to trow away all suspicious ones - brown pieces (if there are any), bark, slags... Then I wash it under flow water. This is quite important part. By washing it, you will get rid of the coal dust. This will lead to less smoke and also you hands will be cleaner (when using it).

After washing, I pick up all nice pieces and let down those, which are too small. After this wet-step, it is necessery to make it dry again. When there is summer sun, it is quite easy. But remember - drier means better. After few tests I found out that when the charcoal is perfectly dry it not just work faster. It produce less smoke/smell, if any. My last batch of charcoal ended up in our kitchen oven - for an hour at 120°C. It is perfect now.

Lighting up

All of you are already anticipating - this is the tricky one. Or funny? Let's see...

There is, of course, many ways how to light up the charcoal. I will talk here about three, which I use. We can call them Natural, Gas and Electric.

By Natural, I call the lighting using just matches, knife, piece of dry wood and charcoal. It is much easier for Boy Scouts. Also if you are use to make bone fires, it is as easy as pie. I use knife to shave the wood. Then I make small fire in my stove and carefully combine wood with pieces of charcoal. After a while the charcoal starts to glow a bit. I stop with wood and just gingerly blow. When smoke from wood disappears and charcoal noticeably burn, I put my kettle on.

This way is for sure the smokiest. I use it just outside but I like it.

Then there is Gas. If you use gas stove in your kitchen you will probably try it. Also camping burners are useful. When I use my gas camping burner I just put few pieces of charcoal on dispersion grille. After few minutes on fire, the charcoal is ready to go, using locking tongs, to my ceramic stove.

Recently, I mostly use our kitchen cooking stove. We have the electric one with glass cook-top. I put several pieces of charcoal on the smallest hotplate. Two minutes are enough to light it up and I am moving it to stove. I realy don't play any games with it. After few more minutes I place the kettle on and I start to prepare  my tea setting- teaboat, leaves, teapots, cups and so on.

If you are going to light up the charcoal on glass cook-top you have to be aware of, at least, two things. First of all, the glass is going to be dirty from ash and fire. I use it like this quite often, and it is still not so bad. But if you like your kitchen clean and shiny... Second and more important thing: when you light up the charcoal in your kitchen: Keep your eye on it. You dont want to have real fire there!

Even when you have cleaned, sorted and dried your charcoal there can be some smoky pieces. So when I put the charcoal on the cooktop I watch out. If any piece starts to smoke I switch it with new one. Sometime there are two, sometime none.

Heating water, feeding the fire

How quickly it works? Well, it depends. I usually say that with some practice, there is not much of free time. I start my tea session with lighting charcoal. Then I prepare my tea table and I usually have just few minutes to calm down, examine leaves and the kettle already starts to sing. When I have started preparing this post I was curious and I used stopwatch. I fill my ceramic kettle with 0,5l of cold water. And from putting the first pieces of the cold charcoal on the cooktop till first cup of puercha it took 23 minutes. And it is really not so bad.

During these charcoal tea sessions I usually feed the fire few times. It is better not to let the fire fade. Time to time add a piece or two of the charcoal. When all is going well then you don't have to care too much about it. Especially, when you start to blow in to it, in order to speed it up, you will probably just end with white ash all around your room.

The Rhythm

In my tea philosophy, the rhythm is what makes a difference. You can have great tea leaves in precious tea ware, but still end up with nervous running around...paying attention to so many things around that you will miss the tea on your tongue. So keep in mind, the preparing water on charcoal is here to help to be in the rhythm, not to disturb. Burning charcoal heats water in ceramic kettle. So natural. It mean four elements in actions: Fire and Air, Water and Earth. It needs some prectice but it is worht it.

If you have anything to share on this topic, please feel free to do it.

And for those who have missed it, Matt´s excellent posts:

http://mattchasblog.blogspot.cz/2011/12/fire-water-art-of-charcoal-part-1.html
http://www.mattchasblog.blogspot.cz/2012/01/fire-water-art-of-charcoal-part-2.html
http://mattchasblog.blogspot.cz/2012/01/fire-water-art-of-charcoal-part-3.html

Thank you for reading!

Tong E Cha

I have spent this morning with Korean tea. Partly oxidized Korean teas are mostly called Balhyocha. In this case, leaves are not only oxidized but also pressed or shaped to kind of ball. This gave name to this tea - it is called Tongecha - cake tea. According to Matt, it is quite new thing in the world of Korean teas. I was aware  that Czech supplier TeaMountain offer this tea, but before I got to buy it, my dear Spanish friend Antonio give me chunk of those interesting leaves. Magic globalization! Tea going from Hwagae valley situated in south of Korean peninsula to Czech Republic, thereafter to Barcelona tearoom and then back to middle of Europe as a friendly gift.

Leaves are dark, small and lively looking. I removed them to small porcelain jar. After a while smelling to this jar I found dark, but sweet and very clearly speaking fragrance. When in many balhyocha you will find spicy or even sharper tones, here it is almost clear, dark chocolate.













Pressing of the tea is light so it didn't surprise me that even first brew was strong. But not too strong, it couldn't kill liveliness and vibrancy of the tea. Second brew become more smooth and filed my mouth with thick taste. The kind of taste, which brings me back to the childhood - candied fruits coated by dark but sweet chocolate.

It was interesting to contemplate how the tea slowly changed thru brews. The chocolate was still there. The aroma of chocolade changed with every cup. It went from heavier orange - citrus aromas over resin and light peprmint to violet or other sweet flowers fragrances. Smelling to empty cup was story itself or no less then irreplaceable part of main tale. The content of the empty cup was colorful and sweet in the way which reminds me best wui oolongs I had. The empty cup was full. And if I have missed that than my tea session would be poorer.






For high quality of those leaves speak (among others) their stamina. I haven't found a break point among brews. Liqueurs become slowly lighter but still sweet and fragrant. The seller says that you can prepare ten, full-blown brews. I confirm that. However, good water, right utensils and tranquil attention is needed for that. This tea is worth it.

Thank you for reading.

Is this going to be our Dragon Well ?

 I belong to that smaller part of earth dwellers with pretty good and sufficient water supply. I can hear, time to time, people around grumble about high water tariff and bills but I know it is nothing. I can freely drink, bath or even fill my swimming pull (if I would like to have one, which I don't) -and all that with safe, drinking water! And that is not because I work hard on it. I was just born in to it. I can be thankful of it, I can be thrifty when using that liquid gold and What else??

One of many ponds of our countryside.

When we brought our property, it was unused for many years, in very bad shape but with quite interesting history and energy. It made us (among others) to choose it like a place where to work and live. We got lucky at several things but the water was probably one of the most important. There was water supply network going to be finished just after we have bought this old stonework building. It saved us from digging our own well. It is also nice to know that this water conduit is full of water which garnered directly from forests and hills around the village. Great! Good water is first half of good cup of tea.

One day, cleaning wild bush on our future garden we found this hole. Hided under mud and two big stones there was old well! It was almost full of dirty water. Under one and half meter of water there were another few meters of mud. When we sucked up all water it was nice to see how this old fashioned dug well is slowly refilled with new water. And the idea was born -We should clean it, repair it and try to make it live again. We have enough water around so we do not need it. Actually small brook makes border of half of the property. But who knows what can happen in the future? One extra well can be useful reserve.

I know, the cement isn't so nice. But sometime you have to make compromises...

Neglected plot is slowly changed in to the garden...

I hope to clean this old companion of our building before winter. I look forward to see how the water will turn out then. Is it going to be drinking water for plants on our garden? Support for our work with clay? Or it will be useful for cooking and drinking? Or is it going to be our Tiger Spring?  The best water for leaves in my teapot? For fresh, spring Dragon Well of 2012? Anyhow - I feel blessed to have this old well here.

reflection of the heaven...