Richard Kilgore

I bet that 80 sec infusion got your attention. It looks like you have an appropriate amount of leaf for gong fu cha, and aiming at 20 seconds for the first infusion may be fine after a 20 second rinse or two. A common first sequence I use when getting to know a new tea is rinse 20, then 20, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, etc. A first infusion of 10 seconds, however, may allow you to see if the second one should be 5, 10 or 20 seconds. By the time you get to the fourth infusion, you probably are going to be brewing no more than 30 seconds. I enjoy soups and stews in the summer, too. Yours sounds delicious.

WmC, I just looked at your Royal Dragon Well on the birdpick.com site, which reminded me that there is a possibility the tea may be the problem. Although it is the highest grade they carry, it is still a fairly low-priced Long Jing, when you count the tea tin they are throwing in. You may want to find a higher grade Dragon Well if you want to know for sure.

What I was shooting for was upping the flavor by increasing the ratio, while damping the bitterness by cooler temp and shorter time. Don't know if it will work for you; only trying it will tell.

As the T-Bar Club at The Cultured Cup is about to resume on Friday, September 11th, 6:30pm, it would be a good time to report briefly on the meetings for the first half of 2009. January - Randy Romig did a Power Point overview of the tea related chapters from "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage. February - Adam Sachs, TCC's director of outside sales, did a presentation on his tea travels in the Cameron Islands of Malaysia. April - Umami, the fifth taste - a tasting of food and green tea pairings choreographed by Kyle Stewart - TCC co-owner, and Adam Sachs. May - Emily Eldridge did a Power Point presentation on Rooibos followed by a tasting of several Rooibos tisanes. June - Sam LeCates, TCC employee (one of the people behind the physical tea bar in the shop), did an interesting presentation on Tea & Music, accompanied by...music and tea. The T-Bar meetings have helped me develop my tea knowledge and my tea palate and are a good, inexpensive opportunity for anyone interested in learning more about tea. A tasting of several teas is part of every meeting. If you are an eGullet Society member interested in going as a guest, please PM me. If you have any questions or comments, post them here, as usual.

Today I brewed a 2009 Spring Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha - Loose Pu-Erh Tea from norbutea.com. More on this interesting leaf in the Pu-erh Tea topic. Edited to add: Also had the Assam Paniltola Estate, Whole Leaf from Tea Source earlier in the day.

That may work with a low leaf to water ratio, but my best guess for this to work with your bitter sensitivity is to up the ratio - a lot - as well as starting at a minute infusion at a temp of 160 - 165 F and then adjusting. With a near gong fu ratio, the leaves will interfere with the tea liquor mixing thoroughly by swirling. I may try this myself, since I usually just throw Dragon's Well (Long Jing) Green Tea in a glass or cup. That said, Long Jing is not likely to set off a fandango; it's a subtler tea, but a favorite of mine...among many favorites. I guess you could try pouring all of the infusion out into a fair cup or any cup large enough to hold all of the infusion while mixing it thoroughly...and then pouring a sip into another cup...and then pouring the infusion back into the pot to continue infusing. But I think the above way will tell you more.

May not make any difference in this case, but pouring a "sip" of an infusion may give you a misleading taste, since tea liquor has different densities in the pot before pouring the whole infusion into a fair cup or cup.

That's interesting, WmC. You mention astringency and bitterness. While they are different characteristics, you may be able to attenuate both by cutting back the brewing time as well as dropping the temp to 160 - 165 as you have been doing. This may weaken the taste so much it is not worthwhile, but you could try brewing for one minute and then in 15 second increments. It would be interesting to see what happens. Is the astringency (drying) as bothersome as bitterness?

2009 Spring Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha - Loose Pu-Erh Tea More about this tea on Norbutea.com Greg Glancy brewed this for me when he first got it in from China. I liked it then and finally got around to ordering some from him. He threw in a little extra so I would have plenty to experiment with. The first thing I did was compare this brewed in a gaiwan and poured into a fair cup. Half of this tea liquor went into a Yixing tea pot with clay from the 1970s - 80s that I have been evaluating for the best match with 1) more roasted Oolongs and 2) shu (ripe, cooked) pu-erh. This is the first sheng (raw) pu-erh I have tried in it. The two tea liquors were poured into tasting cups after the tea had about 30 seconds in the Yixing pot. The tea through three infusions was more typically astringent and bitter from the gaiwan, and the tea was rounder, much less astringent, much less bitter out of the Yixing. I have transfered the wet leaves from the gaiwan and am now continuing the infusions by brewing directly in the Yixing with similar results and increasing sweetness. I had been planning on dedicating this pot to Shu, but the effect on this sheng is more noticeable than the improvement in the shu I have tried. I'll have to brew more of this mao cha and also do this comparison with several sheng pu-erh to see what effect I get before I decide. Here's a little background on this loose raw pu-erh from norbutea.com. Used with permission.

There are some interesting and helpful posts on pu-erh storage by mikepetro in the Show Me Your Teaware topic. They probably do not fit your immediate needs but it's worth reviewing. I keep my small samples (25 gr - 1 ounce) of pu-erh in their ziploc bags in larger Yixing storage jars, but any tea storage container would work. I am not trying to age them, so the ziplocs are okay. Bricks and cakes I keep in wood cigar boxes and in the larger Yixing storage jars. These I put in white paper sacks and write the info about the pu-erh in pencil on the sack. Cigar boxes are okay as long as you select them very carefully to screen out any that have any adhesive odor at all. If the pu picks up a little tobacco aroma, that will not bother me since I really like pu-erh that has earthy, leathery or tobacco notes. But I usually give cigar boxes time to air out their tobacco odors before using them. I may eventually set up some form of storage with humidity control like mikepetro describes.

I have started a new topic on Chinese Green Tea and copied Wholemeal Crank's two interesting posts above to it.

Wholemeal Crank posted yesterday and today about her experience with Chinese green teas in another topic. I have started this new topic focused on Chinese green teas, of which there are many, and copied her posts in this and the next post. Here we can discuss the various Chinese green teas, tea merchant sources, brewing styles, and post tasting notes as well as questions.

Here's an example of a Japanese kyusu side-handle teapot that is glazed on the interior. I have seen similar ones that are taller rather than flatter. Either will work, but the taller ones allow for a little more usable volume.

WmC, I use a glazed Japanese teapot for roasted Japanese teas like Hojicha and Genmaicha, so that the strong flavor does not affect the unglazed clay of teapots used for Sencha and Kukicha. Before getting the unglazed pots, I used a glazed one for everything. You could use a ceramic pot or your glass pot, too, to get started.

I brewed from the the Den's 5 gr Houjicha sample following the directions in the flyer included in the box. One teaspoon for 8 ounces for 15 sec with boiling water. A pleasant but much thinner result than previously with other Houjichas brewed for 1 - 2 minutes in the 175 - 195 range. So I'll try this one in a similar manner next.

Green teas simply may not fit your time and your brewing style. Most Japanese green teas will turn too bitter if over-brewed. You could try using a kitchen timer, of course. That's what I do for brew times over those I count out to myself, usually anything over about 30 seconds. That said, I would suggest a roasted green tea - a houjicha - as a starter, especially since you like traditionally roasted TGYs. As you can see in the Houjicha Tea Tasting & Discussion, it tolerates a wide range of brewing parameters - 175 F, okay; 185 F, okay; 195 F, okay. So you might try starting with a lower temperature if you are likely to get distracted by something else. I'll bet you like it. It's delicious and really hard to abuse.

You may find this topic on Tea: To measure or not to measure of interest, WmC. Some very familiar tea leaves I can eyeball, but I explore many, many teas each month and tools such as the scale and a thermometer help a great deal. If I have only 25 grams of a relatively expensive tea, I really don't want to waste any of it by winging it. I use a very small digital scale that is accurate to a tenth of a gram, aMy Weigh 500-ZH. It's similar to the one on norbutea.com. The cost of very small, very accurate scales has come down so much in the last few years. You can get one in the $20 - $30 range easily.

I ordered a newbie sample pack from denstea.com. Small 10 gram loose leaf samples of Sench Fuka-midori, Genmaicha Extra Green (with Matcha), Organic Sencha and Houjicha Gold --- along with a paper tea filter to use as a fillable tea bag, as well as tea bag samples of Genmaicha Extra Green and Sencha. $3 shipped. So not much to lose if you want to explore Japanese green teas. I'll post about each of these after I brew them.

Also a 2003 Fu Cha Ju Wu Liang Mountain ripe pu-erh, a sample from a cake from Yunnan Sourcing. In a Yixing, Gong Fu Cha style. Curiously I am having a hard time deciding whether or not I like this ripe pu-erh. I have had it twice and there is a pronounced camphor note on the first infusion that I find off-putting. But by the third infusion this is receding a bit and it gains a creamy mouthfeel and more balance. More on this later in the Pu-erh topic after another brewing.

Brewed the Yunnan Imperial from TCC in a Yixing pot dedicated to Chinese red teas. Western style brewing as far as leaf:water ratio goes, and the Yixing produces a tea liquor I like better than when brewed in a glazed western ceramic pot. So, what tea are you drinking today? Edited: for clarification.

Thanks, WmC. I was going to try to replicate your method, but don't think I can do that. But having a realistic way of drinking a delicious tea at work is a good thing.

Hmmm. One minute really isn't a short first infusion for pu-erh. Five seconds is short; 20 seconds is long. Boiling or just off boiling water? Pu-erh is very difficult to eye ball the amount of leaf. I would think you would almost choke on 6 grams of leaf and a one minute first infusion. I just did 6 gr of it in a gaiwan that holds about 130 ml water. 20 sec rinse, 30 sec rest, 10 sec first infusion. Pleasant. The early infusions are always going to be stronger and usually more interesting. This pu will go 12 - 15 infusions or more, but that's with a higher leaf to water ratio and shorter infusion times: a few in the 5 - 10 sec range, then gradually increasing times 15 seconds per infusion, then 30 seconds per infusion for the next few. When you get a chance, try something like that with a 1.5 - 2.0 gr to 1 ounce leaf:water ratio and see what you think.

I know Tony and Tony even drinks coffee out of fine English bone china...but not your grandmother's cup.

Thanks for the info on the Ribena, YP. Comfort tea is comfort tea, isn't it. I certainly drink my share of plain black tea bag iced tea. Today the Kagoshima Sencha Yutaka Midori from o-cha.com, four infusions in a Banko kyusu from yuuki-cha.com. I find this a pretty flexible fukamushi sencha, with my leaf to water ratio running as low as .5 per ounce of water and still pleasing me. I'll brew it a little heavier next time, though.