Gyokuro Asahi

Square Peg,

First, the water should definitely be cooler - 140F or so sounds good. Both of those sites seem to recommend what I think is a fairly low ratio of leaf to water. Here's the brewing recommendation for Gyokuro from Hibika-An ( I just ordered some gyokuro from them - should arrive this week hopefully.) I've found that there is a bigger dispersion of recommendations for Gyokuro than for other teas. Good luck in your brewing experiments.

• Gyokuro or Gyokuro Karigane (2 cups) o Tea leaves: 1 1/2 tablespoons (7 - 8g) o Water temperature: 140 - 158F (60 - 70C) o Amount of water: 200cc. o Waiting time: 2min. o Gyokuro's best features are its sweetness and mellow aroma. It is better to brew with low temperature water to enhance the sweetness and avoid any bitter taste.

This is OT but Id like to know what people think of the export Japanese teas one sees in the stores versus exclusive websites. The ones I see in the stores are various Japanese export companies with various Japanese types. I can get everything from matcha to bancha and every select grade ever mentioned here. I know one thing both have in common not cheap. You probably see these brands on the shelves in Japan. I just havent got around to ordering from the websites to compare. As far as the Chinese teas what I find on the shelves is close enough to what I get from the websites so what I am really paying for is Palins elitism har har.

Jim

PS I did my comm> > > I was given a bag of Gyokuro Asahi from Holy Mountain.

...I wished someone would give me some better than average tea...

In my opinion, Holy Mountain is just average. I have had better luck with Tea Time and Upton.

I was actually given a gift certificate. I bought

Fanciest Jasmine (Moli Huacha), 1/4 pound, $5.00

I did not like the Moli Huacha at all, but then I probably don't like jasmine and it was very strong in this tea.

The pu-erh was OK. My first time with pu-erh. I'm probably not a pu-erh person.

The sencha and the organic clouds of green were the best. I had trouble getting the right brewing parameters, but this may be just my inexperience. The HM teas come with little or no instructions, which probably contributed to me overall dissatisfaction.

The Yin Hao was interesting. There was one pot that was very good. I thought I recorded the parameters correctly, but I was never able to replicate it. Most were too strong or bitter.

At $22 for a 1/4 pound I wouldn't expect much if it is even close to real Gyokuro at all. I tend to see "Gyokuro Asahi" at all of the low end coffee roasters who also sell tea. I believe they all buy from Metropolitan Tea co. (Mlesna) and it is all low to low-mid grade stuff waaaay overpriced for what it is. I know you are just starting out and quite eager, but you really should take your time and grow a bit slower in your pursuit. You will find the answers to your questions intuitively and naturally rather than this haphazard method currently being undertaken.

There are no "parameters" to tea and while many of us are scientific minded tea is one area best to let that go with. Everyone takes their own journey though, and you are free to brazenly hack through the jungle to blaze your own path... I just hope to point out that there is a nice existing pathway steeped in history, tradition, and study with much nicer views.

FWIW,

- Dominic

I'd say that if you are buying any Japanese tea that is not of a very high quality (and unfortunately a high cost) then you are better off with these pre-packaged exports. They are often cheaper, and well sealed so they retain some freshness, and most are passable. I have

Japanese greens are an anomaly in tea, and as much as it pains me, it is just too delicate and demanding to treat like other teas in every part of its life cycle from growth to harvest to store to cup. Frugality has to take a back seat to explore properly, which is hard for me too ;)

- Dominic /I read all of the news doggoneit, dontcha know?

Haphazard? I brew a pot making a careful record of the "parameters". I then vary one or more "parameters" and compare the results. That, to me, seems the antithesis of haphazard. Please explain.

Hmmm... So everyone takes their own path, but if mine involves "parameters" (horrors!), then I am brazenly hacking through the jungle?

Can you explain to me what this "nice existing pathway" is and how I seem to have fallen off into the jungle? I'm not being sarcastic. If there is a better way, I'd like to know about it.

But it is hard to hear when my methodical approach is denigrated.

Well, somehow it is haphazard and somehow it is not. You seem to take a scientific kind of view, you take a sample and scan through the parameter space and then you 'measure' the result. However there are two flaws in this procedure. Firstly this procedure is just cold, technical, which is something i don't want to associate with tea. And the second point is that you cannot scientifically measure the taste of tea. It is quite subjective, so the procedure contradicts itself somewhat. There is really much more needed for a good tea than just the correct amount of tea, steeping temperature, ... I mean they are important but they should not dominate your tea experience. Enjoying tea also requires the right frame of mind. If you are occupied with something, if you're focusing too much, if think too much about doing it correctly, you will never enjoy the tea as much as if you just enjoy.

To me it seems that you are not taking your own path but are hacking away in all directions and searching for a paved way. I know this may be not satisfactory, because it is not a clear procedure, but as Dominic said slow down. Enjoy your tea, enjoy the preparation of the tea and don't focus too much on the technical side. To stay with the analogy, look at the jungle, enjoy the view and eventually you will find a way. Follow it. At some times it may be necessary to hack a little bit but then you probably know where and when to hack.

I don't know if this is the pathway Dominic mentioned and i apologize if i am not of much help or you feel offended. My tea experience is limited to only three years of stumbling, but that way i managed to get one or two perfect moments.

Stefan

YinHao is one of my favorites. Make sure it is the YinHao without the Jasmine flavor. I buy mine in 500g tins. Ive made sure I am stocked for life. I consider it an honest tea ie you dont have to fuss around to make it. All the brewing aint going to change the taste very much. It is spring bud. There is no guarantee it is consistent through and through. Add more than you think. It goes down heavy. You may have to dump the first infusion to get something milder. I like bold lip smaking Chinese greens. I notice if I suck in a leaf it seems leathery. When Im breaking in a new tea I drink it exclusively for about a week. I dont like the potpourri approach. It took me about a decade to appreciate green teas perse versus the readily available oolongs and blacks ie I had to unlearn some expectations. Fermented teas like Puer are a special case. There are teas I only drink on a rainy day or to determine how sick I am.

Jim

PS I wished some> ...i bore me not you...

I think Stefan did a very good job of offering a similar but different view which ultimately reaches the same point I was making. Look, I'm not here to chastise you... we are all here to help. Honestly, even if it may not be what you want to hear or believe. We can all see your myriad posts and they all read identically. A new tea, a desire for scientific approach, a frantic flailing within "parameters," sometimes an acceptable result sometimes not. There is so much more to tea that you are sadly missing that we are more interested in helping you find the real story, the joy, the mindfulness, the history, the farmers, the process, the tradition... among many other factors. It's actually painful to me, and I'm sure others, to watch. So naturally we want you to realize there is more there than meets the eye, and we can see you have an interest, which are positives and in no way negative as you may feel.

Tea is not meant to be scientific, in fact many original scholars speak out against such an approach. When most of us speak of scales, thermometers, and stop watches it is usually only as a way to quantify what we do so that it may be more easily shared in an impersonal medium like Usenet. It is also good every now and then for establishing a baseline to then work from unscientifically or to check your work every now and then... but those tools are not a very large part of most of our experiences 99% of the time - if ever.

There are too many variables to quantify anything with tea and I guess the part that pains me the most is I guess (and not meant badly) a foolish view to think anyone could. Again when you go back to history it was not handled in this manner, and is not meant to. With Puerh many texts speak of how many "breaths" for steeping times. That is where you should begin. It makes it personal, it allows the focus and mindfulness to be on the tea, "the agony of the leaves," and the process. It also doesn't help that you are wildly swinging between very different types and regions of tea that all require different nuance and subtle differences.

This is a long reply, I know, but I feel I am required it after my initial comments which may have been taken poorly. There is a wealth of information here in the archives including many folks who do not post anymore who were very knowledgeable, there are many great people still here, many years of study and growth and discovery, if you want to be scientific about anything my suggestion would be to focus it on R&D and reading and history. It will all result in a better cup of tea because unscientifically sometimes the best tea is an emotion while the tea itself is merely passable. I could elaborate more but I'll pause here for now to read your thoughts.

- Dominic

I consider Yamamotoyama to be the Liptons of Japanese tea. I like the export grades I find in the stores. Some are so good I wonder how they stack up against the 'real' thing. My main problem with Japanese teas Im just too brutal using boiling water. The tea ceremonies boil. The kyusu has a protracted handle to insulate against hot water. I think it is more than form. I hate to say it but Ill have to leave what is good in the stores versus something more direct to somebody else.

Jim

Dom> > This is OT but Id like to know what people think of the export

...commercial versus estate...

Lipton has some good offerings in some of their foreign offerings so I'd say that's fair :) Yamamotoyama has a number of teas some are good some aren't so hot but like I said I'm addicted to their sencha. I do have to stick to my findings that the real deal is just unapproachable in flavor and quality, I wish it wasn't so believe me. I treat it like a special bonus and just bite the bullet at times... it does make it harder to enjoy though knowing what that single cup cost than even some of the most expensive teas from elsewhere. As for boiling water you are correct, but you have to remember tea ceremony calls for Matcha which does take boiling water. Delicate greens really do suffer from too much heat.

I doubt it will be news to you but since it is in keeping with this thread here is a link to Hibiki-An's page on brewing tips/suggestions:

I'm not sure what your experience is with matcha but it can be had at very reasonable prices and is very enjoyable. It's everything you want in one: cheap, available, and able to take high temps with little fuss. But even as it goes against my normal views too, I'd suggest everyone enjoy a true Japanese green freshly in season and brewed properly. There may be no better tea for me, and it would undoubtedly change your mind on what the difference truly is.

- Dominic

Square Peg,

I consider myself a beginner like you when it comes to tea. As an engineer and someone who does math for fun, I at first took the approach to tea that you are taking. I wanted to classify and measure and know everything I could. Then I got overwhelmed by the parameters. I was so concerned with what I "should" do and "should" enjoy that I felt that tea was more of a chore than a pleasure. Well, not exactly, but the desire to get it "perfect" was detracting from the enjoyment. For example, I felt that I simply HAD to like green teas because that is what everyone seems to rave about. I played around with water temps and amount of tea and steeping times to get a cup of green tea that I loved. Now I accept that fact that most greens simply don't do it for me.

I know that, in my case, I underestimate the amount of knowledge that comes with experience and instead try to nail it all down from the start. Now I'm trying to just go with it, try different things, and develop that skill so that it becomes second nature.

Please consider Stefan's point that taste is subjective. I have found that many teas that I at first disliked have grown on me. Some of that comes with experiencing different teas, but a lot has to do with day- to-day changes in taste. So, you can do all sorts of experiments with different teas, then find that your taste has changed or that next year's crop is completely different from this year's.

You're free to do what you want, of course. You came here for advice, and you're getting it. Take it leave it. Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating, right?

Alan

"Stefan Schenk" <Ich_weiss_wer_ich snipped-for-privacy@gmx.de wrote

How revealing story it is!

Incidentally, what teas have given you such perfect moments? I presume that the teas must have been such that they must be the ones that taste like tea.

I have been looking for for some time a tea-like tea, in vain, that is, the tea that tastes like tea.

How do I know about such tea-like tea? I happened to have had some luck to encounter such, exactly three times, each time being of different kind of tea, all of which trails I seem to have lost?

One of them was a jasmine green from a local shop here in Germany. Nothing expensive, but this tea had just such a completeness in scent and taste. And for a long time just by breathing out i had this warm beautiful scent again in my nose. Unfortunately already the next package of the same tea was just ugly and i never found a similar jasmine tea again. Perhaps i was just lucky or my tastes changed, i don't know.

The other one is this sencha here:

Probably we mean the same, but my expression would be: I'm looking for tea-like tea that is like tea.

I have the best tea experience when all my senses are touched. The look of the leaves, dry and in the pot - the scent - the taste - feeling the pot with your hands - sunny but not hot weather - almost silence, you hear the leaves in the wind, some birds, your breath - the anticipation of the tea - the aftertaste.

Yeah, i know what you mean.

Im seeing a better choice of teas in Japantown. It is equivalent to what I saw in Chinatown in the 80s and 90s when the good stuff started to appear on the shelves. My real problem I dont know how good the Japanese stuff is suppose to be. I have one or two Japanese export teas that knock my socks off even at boiling.

Jim

PS I have some cerem> ...shelves versus local...

"Stefan Schenk" <Ich_weiss_wer_ich snipped-for-privacy@gmx.de wrote

That's more like it. I adopt your expression to describe a tea-like tea.

It seems that you are a tea lover in a real sense.

Thanks.

Would you let us all have information about what they are which apparently reeled you at a whiff of the leaves?

One Ive mentioned in the past is Yabukita. I want to mention something about the word 'freshness' you see used to describe Japanese teas. It has nothing to do with shelf life. It refers to minimal processing which is only steaming. Since it is only one stage, I view it as 'sealing in the nutrients'. The less stages the better. Ive never seen any nitrogen packs from Japan.

Jim

PS I havent been disappo> > I have one or two Japanese export

I have to say that while many do stand up to time well (some even aged slightly), there is a remarkable difference in a truly fresh crop which is less than 3-4 months old. I really like fresh Japanese greens, and that is fresh in terms of time. Here is some great info on many aspects of Gyokuro:

Yabukita is just a variety, a popular one, but just as "Dragonwell" it is overused to cover a wide range of varying tea quality and flavor. Maeda-en also varies and just like Yamamotoyama offers a wide range of poor to very good tea, I've never tried their Gyokuro but I'll give it a try. Many Japanese greens are high quality even in lower grade export packages so I guess it is a bit tough to debate because while many are very good the jump up to fresh and ultra-high grades can be subtle at times or vary in the differences differently than how many other teas are judged. I actually think we agree more than it seems from this conversation, I just can't say that the ultra-high grades are in a class with even the best of the standards. I've tasted them, and some hand delivered by friends from the source and brewed in amazing fashion that puts my skills to shame... so my experience has probably tainted me more than the average Joe Six-pack/Hockey Mom ;)

- Dominic