cdh

So any luck in brewing these teas, Chris?

The choice of cheese and how it is served matters as well. Will it just be a board with cheeses and knives and an assortment of bread/crackers... or will the cheeses be pre-chunked with toothpicks sticking out of them... or will it be transformed into cheese-centric canapes already garnished and ready to pop into the mouth? Will there be any strong/runny Epoisses-y cheeses there... will there be extremely flavorful cheeses like aged gouda or parmigiana or gorgonzola? In a cheese and crackers situation, you'll get a lot more mileage out of something strongly flavored than you will out of a block of Colby.

Temperature didn't seem to make much difference. I used water starting at a minute off the boil and made a series of infusions without bothering to pump more BTUs into the water during the process.

Tiny quantities, lightning infusions. 1g:1oz seemed to work... no more than 20 seconds from first contact with hot water to beginning draining tea off the leaves.

A little bit to the south you could go to the Spinnerstown Hotel... great wine and beer selections, tasty food, quite reasonable, though much closer to Quakertown than Allentown.

Tried them once recently, and don't see what all the fuss is about. The burger while juicy, was also tough. The fries were unexciting... not crispy, too much salt on the exteriors, yet not salty enough as a whole. I just don't get the enthusiasm.

I stopped by the Dosa Hut on Ridge Pk, and enjoyed a great dosa for lunch today... And noticed that they've upgraded the formerly shabby interior quite a bit since I'd last stopped in. It's a very nice space now, and the food continues to be really tasty.

I've figured out imagegullet's current incarnation, so here's a snap of the brewing system I've found to produce drinkable infusions from these teas. The tall brown clay cup holds 40ml... I keep the leaves in there, fill it up, put the blue cup on top and turn the pair upside down. Wait for the infusion to get where I want it and then drain the liquid out into the demitasse.

As a puehr newbie, I'd say that technique in brewing is paramount to actually being able to enjoy these teas. None of them are particularly enjoyable when infused for more than about 30 seconds, as bitter tannins dominate everything at that point. Water temperature is not the key, time of infusion is everything. Since I started brewing in 40ml increments in a tiny aroma cup system, and tasting from 5 or 10 seconds forward, these teas have become interesting and more enjoyable. I'd say in order of approachability, the ManSai is tops, and BangWai is the most challenging.

I've been trying out the aroma cup set method of brewing with these teas, and still not getting much aromatic out of any of them beyond the cigar/lawnmower notes. The flavors are much more pronounced with the tiny infusion/short time brewing. My aroma cup system infuses 40ml at a time, and I've been infusing about 1.8g of tea for between 10 and 20 seconds with water from a recently boiled kettle. The bitterness of each of the varieties is muted and the grassy tea flavors do come out much better. My preference is still for the ManSai, which is brighter with citric edges, as opposed to the other two, which are smokier and more vegetal...

Most of my yixing has come from museum gift shops... there must be a company with big yixing stock that supplies them, because lots of them stock em... good luck tracking down who it is...

Trying the BangWai again... I have broken out the aroma cup set I've got (and I'd post a pic of it if I could figure out how imagegullet worked nowadays...)... and I'm still not getting much in the way of interesting or appealing aroma out of it. The best aromatic descriptor I can come up with for this tea is "mowing the lawn while smoking a cigar". The unscented hand lotion I'd applied hours ago provided strong competition for the aromatics this tea was giving off when brewed at 1g to 1oz... The leaves after the tea is poured off have a heavier ashy aroma for the first 3 or 4 infusions, then segue into grassy, though all are extremely muted in comparison to the oolongs that I generally consume. Perhaps I've gotten so accustomed to teas with the aromatics turned up to 11 that subtlety is now lost on me...

I see what you're talking about now. I've settled on the following method: place leaves into 2 oz demitasse. Fill with water of desired temperature. Wait 5 seconds. Begin sipping from demitasse. That allows me to experience the range of flavor before the bitter astringency takes over. There's still not much in the way of aroma from these teas...

I've clearly been letting things brew too long then... even my 20 second infusions seem to have covered up the herbal nuances under a thick bitter astringency... Time to try again, with infusions that start draining off as soon as the cup is filled.

OK. This is a tough batch to compare and contrast. The initial aromas out of the bag are the most different things about these teas. They're all grassy. BangWai is smoky and phenolic, as well as grassy. ManMai is just grassy, in the way that LongJing is grassy. ManSai is grassy with a less phenolic-laden smoke... For a comparative brew, I decided to dirty all of the demitasse cups in the house to make exact duplicate brews. I put 1.5g of each tea into a 2oz ceramic demitasse cup. Brought some water to a boil and did a 30 second boiling water rinse on each set of leaves. Then I brewed each tea with the water that had been off the boil for about 2 minutes, for an initial steep of 20 seconds, then poured each through a strainer into a second dual-wall insulated stainless demitasse cup. On the whole, they're really really similar in the cup. The BangWai has a slightly smokey edge to it, as its dry aroma would predict. The ManSai gives no hint in the cup that it smelled smokey in the bag, being just grassy. The ManMai is a bit brighter than the other two... perhaps a hint of lemoniness in the aftertaste. BangWai is much more bitter and tannic, with a thicker body. The ManSai is in the middle on the astringency. The ManMai is the most sweet of the three. These differences, however are all well within the range that you could get by brewing the same tea under different conditions... I don't know that I have enough insight or vocabulary to go on further with a comparison/contrast of these teas...

Indeed... they did have some great teas... I'm really enjoying the Yunnan I got from them. Wish I'd picked up more of that when I could.

Now that it's back, it is new and improved with even more travails... what a headache it must have been...

I've played around a little bit with these teas to get an idea of how they perform. Interesting phenolic smoky aroma when opening the packets. The teas themselves seem to perform better brewed at 175-180F rather than any higher... bitterness started coming out when I pushed the temps up above 180 on my trial batch of leaves. The leaves do have flavor longevity for lots of infusions. Will have to sit down this afternoon and do some comparative tasting.

Ah... your post brought this to mind: Not too sweet... quite amusing.

That's sad... the pictures were so pretty. The perils of strong messaging control, I guess.

So... should I treat these like green teas and brew low temp, short time, multiple infusion? What is the standard brewing procedure for this type of puehr?

Mine just got here too... Will start brewing soon.

Temple oranges are my favorite.

Why not just straight Campari?

Wanted to report a tasty unsauced smoked pulled pork sandwich is to be had at the Jamison Publick House up in Geryville, PA, just off of 663. Neat space as well... the 1750's era building has been stripped down to the stone walls and rough hewn beams. Haven't eaten through the rest of their menu, and the BBQ was a "special", and reported as "the owner's hobby", but it was well done...