different brew routines from tea experts

I would recommend to use the same rule as with any Usenet group - take a look at our FAQ

Sasha.

Hi--

At Alex's suggestion, I went and looked at the FAQ, and (in my quick skim) I didn't see anything about brewing Japanese leaf tea, so let me weigh in.

Monrae is being a careful reporter by describing the geographic source of the information, but-- multiple brewings of tea are typical throughout Japan.

I am talking here about *leaf* tea, *not* tea ceremony tea (the powdered tea, matcha). My research is on what, in the West, is called the "tea ceremony," but most tea ceremony professionals are very interested and involved in *leaf* tea as well. Some of them also teach a ritualized version of *leaf* tea preparation, which would seem just as worthy of the English name "tea ceremony," but, since this is not as well-known in the West, doesn't get that name. In Japanese, the leaf tea ritual is often called something like "sencha-doo." Tea ceremony (with matcha) is sometimes called "cha-no-yu," mostly to specify powdered tea ritual as opposed to leaf tea ritual, but once *that* detail is firmly established in the conversational context, people usually talk about "doing tea," "learning tea," or "teaching tea" when talking about the (matcha) tea ceremony.

Many people in Japan make leaf tea with about all the expertise that many Americans make coffee-- which is to say *no* expertise at all. Making tea for the whole office at 3 pm, for example, might be a duty that rotates among the members of an office, or might be given to the youngest female worker in the office. They pour (poor quality) leaf tea into a pot, pour in very hot water, and with no degree of certainty, begin to pour the tea into the assembled tea cups. (They

Sometimes, an office might recieve, as a gift, a fancy package of tea... most people have a very vague notion that "good" tea should be infused with cooled water, but normal people really have no concrete idea of *how* to do that, and they make it with the very hot water, and then try to convince themselves that it's really very tasty.

Careful tea drinkers in Japan (drinkers of Japanese leaf tea) know better. They know the water should be brought to a full boil, then cooled. The cooling is often done by putting the very hot water into a special ceramic utensil made to cool hot water (called "yuzamashi"). These are usually squat bowls with a pouring lip. They are often artistically made. However, without such a utensil, you can pour the water into a (clean) coffee-mug (etc) to let the ceramic body "steal" heat from the water. If you are in a hurry, or making tea for several people, you might use several cups, even pouring water from one (now warmed) cup to another (cool) cup to steal more heat more quickly.

How cool? Well, one of my tea teachers (matcha teacher, but she was also into leaf tea) said you should be able to stick your finger into the water without wincing ;) Obviously different people have different tolerances, and I've had "good" tea prepared at a variety of temperatures, but, by and large, if it's cool enough to stick your finger in, you're in the right neighborhood. I have never met anybody in Japan who uses a thermometer to make their tea!

If you only half-boil the water, thinking you'll save some time, it doesn't taste right. If you add cool water to the boiled water, it doesn't work. I don't know why. I was warned about this by my teachers, but tried anyway-- several times. It always tasted like a tepid mess. The flavors didn't come together right.

Japanese people not socialized into this elite preparation method often squawk about wanting their tea nice and *hot*. Remind them that the packages of good sencha *always* tell you to cool the water, and that you are going to show them how that works. (I have found they are usually impressed with the results).

You normally make high-quality tea (high-quality sencha or gyokuro-cha) in a small ceramic tea pot with a handle on the side. This is called a "kyusu." There are cheap aluminum versions used in offices, but typically these are used by people making much cheaper tea who don't know much. The bigger tea pots with wicker handles over the top are also generally associated with lower-quality tea preparation... it makes tea for the masses, not *nice* tea.

I will describe an informal way of preparing high-quality leaf tea. The rituals of sencha-doo are not only complicated, but also quite a bit more varied than the basic way matcha is prepared.

Into this small tea pot, I might put about 3-4 teaspoons of leaf tea. Some Japanese who see me do this are aghast at my wastefulness... but my tea teachers were always very liberal in their use of tea leaves... they would say that they wanted tea with *body* ("koku") and *color* ("iro"). This generous use of tea leaves will *not* create a cup that is more bitter-- just *stronger*... and i found this to be typical behavior among serious tea drinkers.

You then fill the kyusu with the cooled water, swirl it around 5 to 10 seconds, then start pouring (as above, you move from cup to cup to keep the servings of similar strength). It's a small pot. You'll be more or less finished pouring in under 10 seconds, though you might spend another 10 seconds shaking out the last drops (more below). If you have two smallish cups, one pot will pretty much fill them.

Look at the surface of the tea infusion in the cups. You should be able to see small dust-like flecks floating on the surface. These are little crystals of a naturally occuring chemical that gives the tea its peculiar sweetness ("amami"). This chemical is related to MSG. (During and after WWII, when there was very little high-quality tea to be had, many tea dealers openly "salted" the tea with small amounts of MSG to mimic this quality. Nobody thought it was as good as the real thing, but saw it as an acceptable stop-gap.) If you use very hot water, this chemical will not form crystals, so no "dust" flecks on the surface of the tea. These flecks will continue to be formed in later infusions.

First infusion (ichi-ban-cha). Very light, but fragrant. In Chinese tea traditions, this first infusion is thrown away (or rather, it is interpreted as just getting the leaves wet/rinsing the leaves with hot water). Some Japanese point out that this infusion is the one with the most caffeine.

The tea preparer will strive to shake every last drop of liquid out of the tea pot: Any water left inside will hasten the unfurling of the leaves, something to be avoided. Every remaining drop coming out of the pot will be *visibly* dense with tea flavor. This shaking, however, can be very in-elegant. One of my teachers said that unless you are preparing the tea by sencha-doo ritual, you should never prepare tea in direct view of a guest you need to impress: Not only does it look funny to stick your finger in the water, but the shaking of the tea pot (and the resultant splattering) looks bad. Among friends, however, this is recognized as a normal part of the process.

Second infusion (ni-ban-cha). The cooled water is put into the pot, swirled an even shorter period (2-3 seconds?) and poured.This is usually the cup with the most pronounced herbacious character. Very fragrant.

Third infusion (san-ban-cha). Different people will do different things at this point. The goal of this kind of tea preparation is to taste the differences between each infusion. If the tea preparer feels s/he is timing the infusions well, and has kept the leaves relatively dry (not floating in liquid) between infusions, and, thus, has confidence that s/he can make *four* infusions that will all taste different, the third infusion will be made with more cooled water. Again, an extremely short infusion (pour the water in, put the lid on, and start pouring). This third-of-four infusions will have backed away from the peak intensity of the second infusion, but, because of that, will display more subtlety (though, obviously different from the first infusion).

A less confident preparer might decide to call it quits with the third infusion, and use just-boiled (very hot) water. Again, a very short infusion. This tea will be less herbacious, have less of that sweetness, and will be most similar to tea as infused by the masses. I don't know why, but even though you have used very hot water this time, this last infusion will often still have a few of the the dust-flecks of that chemical... perhaps because of the quick infusion? The last infusion will always be done with very hot water, so if a cool third infusion was made, the forth infusion (yon-ban-cha) will be made with very hot water.

"Sen-cha" can range considerably in quality, and the notes above are about how to make "good" sencha. Gyokuro-cha is always at least "good," as its production is much more involved. Gyokuro is prepared in a manner similar to that described here, but often the kyusu is ridiculously small (looking, even to Japanese people, like part of a toy tea set!), and the tea cups are proportionally smaller. The resulting tea is very intense, and I have to admit I'm not very fond of it. The MSG-like "amami" is strongly apparent.

james-henry holland japanese language and culture hobart and william smith colleges geneva, new york 14456 usa

m> i've been told that in south japan near Kagoshima they will usually brew

P.s.

Um, I meant "Sasha," of course. Sorry.

Fourth infusion, not forth ;) hehehe

When you splatter as you shake out the last drops, if you are preparing the tea out of sight of a guest, you use a paper-towel or kleenex to wipe drops of tea from the rim of the cup. Even if you are being sloppy in front of a friend, some people will wipe the cups before serving.

james-henry holland "thitherflit" snipped-for-privacy@hws.edu

For the character challenged like myself, could you please include the Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji characters for the Romaji you use?

Thanks, Jim

Thitherflit wrote:

...Worthy of a Google archive...

From the CTC section of the FAQ: "The machines rapidly compress withered tea leaves, forcing out most of their sap"

Could losing "most of their sap" be the reason that teabags are not as good whole tea leaves?

Hi--

Sorry- I'm so used to people complaining about the gibberish that shows up on many machines that I now often leave out the orthography-- but-- here are a few key terms:

Kyuusu (small, side-handled tea pot):　急須

Amami (a distinct kind of sweetness, often associated with MSG):　甘味

Sencha-doo (ritualized preparation of sencha or other Japanese leaf teas):　煎茶道

Yuzamashi (squat ceramic bowl used to cool water):　湯冷まし、ゆざまし

Koku (the texture, body of a tea):　濃く、こく

The last couple of words are given two "spellings." Sometimes the version with the Chinese characters (kanji) is used only by the more highly literate in very formal settings, or in the discourse of specialists. Otherwise, the last two words are also written in hiragana in more everyday settings.

james-henry holland

Thanks!! I assume san-ban-cha would be 三番茶 because ban means 'number' in Japanese?

Jim

Thitherflit wrote:

CTC manufacture doesn't *lose* the sap; it just redistributes it. Moving the sap to the surface of the leaf fragments in finished CTC tea helps darken the liquor faster while steeping, which is probably an important marketing goal for lots of companies.

/Lew

Ban ? means "guard" and numerical, but ?? mean"coarse tea" as oppose to ?? (sencha) which means "roasted tea". ???, ???, ??? refer to what we would call "flushes" - sequentive yield of tea leaf for each year crops. Similar system was implemeted in Russia - there were "super quality" and "numeric quality" - 1st, 2-d... etc.

Sasha.

Jim

Thitherflit wrote:

Hi again,

Yes, Jim is right: San-ban-cha is 三番茶　　I figured that was intuitive, but I guess not. Literally, it means "number 3 tea," and in this context refers to the infusion.

Sasha's characters morphed somewhere in the process, but it seems he is pointing out that there is another use of "bancha" (番茶) to mean low-quality tea. The characters are the same as the "bancha" of "san-ban-cha" (or ichi-ban-cha or ni-ban-cha or yon-ban-cha), but the context is different, and the meanings are completely different.

Sasha's characters for the flush names morphed, and since there aren't any readings, I can't comment. Shin-cha (新茶) (lit, new tea) is, in my experience, the normal term for "first flush."

james-henry holland

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

I assume san-ban-cha would be ??? because ban means

Thiterflit:

I believe this is where the Japanese method differs with the Chinese method when it comes to heating water for tea....I mean for those who prepare their teas carefully. The serious Chinese tea preparation method calls for water not to reach full boil (or "old man" water, as they call it). Doing so flattens the taste of the water (less oxygen?), they say. "Shrimp eye" water (technically water that hasn't boiled but is already producing tiny bubbles on the surface of the glass kettle...which is impossible to observe with a tetsubin, I suppose) is generally used to brew green and more delicate teas.

The Chinese method (shrimp eye/crab eye/ etc), however, does not take into account that water boils at different temperature at different altitudes.

Phyll

Thitherflit wrote:

Yes, I think my server strips down UNICODE... Any way "new tea" is a synonym to "flushes" you can read about it here if you can or use Google to translate it:

Sasha.

Yes, Jim is right: San-ban-cha is ?????I figured that was intuitive, but I guess not. Literally, it means "number 3 tea," and in this context refers to the infusion.

Sasha's characters morphed somewhere in the process, but it seems he is pointing out that there is another use of "bancha" (??) to mean low-quality tea. The characters are the same as the "bancha" of "san-ban-cha" (or ichi-ban-cha or ni-ban-cha or yon-ban-cha), but the context is different, and the meanings are completely different.

Sasha's characters for the flush names morphed, and since there aren't any readings, I can't comment. Shin-cha (??) (lit, new tea) is, in my experience, the normal term for "first flush."

james-henry holland

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

I assume san-ban-cha would be ??? because ban means

Bancha can also mean 'last tea' which is why I didn't even bother to look for Ban meaning infusion. In the end the characters trump the transliteration which is why I asked. I also knew the Kanji character has a different meaning in Japanese. While I'm here I get lots and lots more Google hits using 湯さまし for YuzaMashi than JHH's ゆざまし. I know there is proabably a caveat because I've been red faced before by incorrect language on the Japanese sites.

Jim

Thitherflit wrote:

...??? :-)...

No, because the whole idea is that the sap isn't lost, but is transferred to the outside of the leaf. That's why a CTC tea steeps so quickly compared with an orthodox process tea.

It's possible that a CTC tea will also become stale faster for the same reason.

But there is nothing wrong with CTC teas, and there are some excellent ones out there. There's also no reason that teabags cannot be made with decent tea, even though most are made with crap. However, there is an economic disincentive to do so.. and the primary problem of poor water circulation through the bag remains.

--scott

I think these words should be cut in granite tablets and hang on a wall at every tea shop in the world, so that an owner can just silently point at it when is asked about bags and loose teas.

Sasha.

Wow, what a wide of answers. from the brilliantly informed James Henry-Holland who then goes on to completely and concisely answer the point of the question. and at the other end we have pompous Sasha, who says go to faqs before you ask. why does asinine come to mind? as if even the most detailed faqs are likely to specifically answer this question. there seem to be a lot of people around who were caned at school and can now have a down on those who they think might not be *too bright* either. sorry to have to say like this....sigh