Hops / hop tea for drinking

[yveei]

So I'm always brewing with Styrian, Hallertauer, and Saaz but I'm never sure exactly what they taste like.
Sure I can smell them or brew a smash beer, but I want to know how they taste, and try out some other hop varieties!

I was reading about making tea from hops to get an idea of what flavours they impart so I put 4 pellets of Styrian (6% AA) in a strainer and poured hot (not boiling) water over them for about a minute until I had a mug full.
Then I tried it...



... bloody hell!
It is so incredibly bitter!!

Has anyone else done something similar? How did you get on?

Is there any other straightforward way of tasting the hops?

 

[Random Badger]

Just rub them on your gums*

I tried an experiment comparing some hops recently: Dry hopping experiment - good or bad idea?




*Don't actually do this.

 

[yveei]

Just rub them on your gums*

I tried an experiment comparing some hops recently: Dry hopping experiment - good or bad idea?




*Don't actually do this.

Just read your post - I like it. I'll try adding a small amount of hop tea to some lager and see what happens.

As a quick update, now that the "tea" has cooled down it's somewhat palatable but still incredibly bitter!

 

[RichardM]

Try making three pale ales using a different, single hop in each. Keep the recipes the same apart from the hop used each time

 

[yveei]

Try making three pale ales using a different, single hop in each. Keep the recipes the same apart from the hop used each time

I guess I was looking for a shortcut to having to do that, even though I would end up with 3 different pale ales - great news!

It feels like too much effort to have three beers on the go, then racking, priming, bottling all three, and then the clean up!
But maybe there is no shortcut