My first tea (not from a bag)

Temple of heaven is great. It does get kind of astringent if you steep it too long, and It is very dense, so you should use less by volume than you would of a more typical blend

Just like on a can of ground coffee the manufacturer is interested in not having the tea last you very long so you buy more. 1 teaspoon is generally adequate, 1.5 for a larger mug.

There are many water temp. and steep time guides online, they will be fairly accurate and get you in the ballpark.

No. Tea oxidizes in air. 24 hours is too long. Also some teas will grow mold very quickly. Generally the 1st brew is discarded and a 2nd made immediately. You can drink the 1st brewing and then immediately make a second though.

It will take years for you to distinguish between fine teas and low-mid grade ones. Teas that you think are high quality now will be like the lowest grade you consider in time. Although there are a few low grade teas that I regularly enjoy, my tastes have grown to upper end teas... but that took years.

Just enjoy your tea, gunpowder tea is a good green tea. Although I personally prefer Sencha. I like Jasmine Green Tea, and strawbery sencha as well. Jasmine green "pearls" are one of my favorite daily teas. A great book is called "the Book of Tea" and a wonderful intro to tea.

How popular is it to discard the first brew ? Should it be a full steeping or can it be a quick 1-2 min "wash"?

John F

John, When I first "got back" into teas I began looking for a China Black since that had been my first love as a college student in the 70's...What I found was Specialteas Emperors Red (593), and Golden Monkey (510) and Yunnan golden royal (509) AND more recently Keemun Hao-Ya A (503) ...those are just the Blacks (red).

Doug

see my post on gunpowder. It is very easy to oversteep gunpowder-- more so than other greens. It's the most "advanced" green IMHO and frequently it will go wrong. If done right though it can be very good. I have a feeling that most of the people who don't like it made a mistake in its preparation. When I started with gunpowder it took me several attempts to get anything remotely drinkable and you can't carry over the lessons you learn from it to other greens (or vice versa). This is kind of sad since gunpowder is frequently one's introduction to loose-leaf greens and often it puts people off of them forever.

Some people always discard the first brew. Keep in mind you're discarding most of the caffeine when you do so. I would suggest a 'wash' of 30 seconds or so.

I get enough caffeine from other teas (usually start the day with 2 cups of strong black,) that I don't need to worry about washing out the caffeine from gunpowder.

I find the first steeping's tea worthless. It doesn't taste very good, and the leaves are still tightly rolled up. I can get three drinkable infusions after the first, so I don't mind pouring out the first one at all.

stePH in cup: "Guo Jiang Xiang" sample received from Michael Plant. I don't even know what this is, but it seems to be an oolong that's almost fully green.

It depends. I personally will drink the first brew for the most part, except when using my Yixing teapots. Some teas simply need a "wash" or a quick steam even to soften them and begin to let them unfurl before brewing. I personally do not believe in "right" or "wrong" with tea, it is all a matter of personal taste. I'm not a big "rules" guy, I don't have a thermometer for my water temps... I just go by experience and my personal taste. BUT. I also have studied tea and at least know what is considered "right" so I'm not just blindly guessing either.

You will learn over time what produces the best results, that's half the fun. Just enjoy it and don't worry about what is right and wrong. Get some pointers online or in books and go from there.

I really enjoyed "The Book of Tea" by Okakura. It is like $4 and will give you a great background and appreciation for tea and the ceremony surrounding it. Also if you search the net you will find many sites covering brewing for each particular type of tea.

"The Book of Tea" by Kakuzo Okakura is available at Project Gutenberg for free.

Enjoy!

-Troy Howard

I would second the suggestion of 30 seconds - I find that for the black teas I prefer this is enough time to release most of the caffeine (and astringency) and yet still allow for a second flavorful re-steeping for drinking.

Good luck and enjoy your teas.

I generally don't, especially because I think that tosses most of the caffine :-) With temple of heaven, I can get about 3 brews, usually in the span of about an hour and a half or so. I'm not sure how long it takes to mold, but I don't aim to find out. BEsides, the stuff is cheap. I have 500 grams from my local asian mart that I paid maybe 8 bucks for. And that for one of my favorite teas (admittedly, I'm fairly new at this)

Caffeine, yes -- but I find astringency is a characteristic of the tannins that osmose (is that a word?) into the water when the tea steeps too long. They don't seem to come out so much at the beginning.

Though instructions I've seen say to steep black tea 3 to 5 minutes, I usually go for 3 or less. More than that and the tea is unpleasantly astringent. The 5-minute brewers must be taking it with milk.

stePH in cup: dragonwell and sencha (bulk) from Limbo (last of the dragonwell wasn't quite enough for a cup)

-- NP: 5uu's, "The Futility of Oneness"

Yes, thi is exactly what I find. I can barely drink most teas that are steeped for more than 3 minutes. I find that for persian tea(cardamon or bergamot tea)....or Earl Grey, 2-2.5 minutes is enough. I had previously thought that the water temp was the problem but in actuality it is the steeping time. I don't use milk in my tea so perhaps I'm more sensitive to the bitterness from the tannins. I don't even like the smell of oversteeped tea. I like my tea to have a fresh aromatic quality that can be easily overpowered be the bitter smell of oversteeping. It seems that there is a really fine line for me between it being perfect and it being terrible. I've thrown away many pots of tea by being careless about the time. But I'm sure there are many people in this forum that probably like a more bitter brew. That is what I find fascinating about all this.

Pete

I have gone to the 30 second "wash" then my first cup steeped for 2.5 min and the second for 3 min. and cutting back the tea to a teaspoon.

Results are much improved!

John F

You double-steep black tea? I thought black teas were worthless for a second drinking infusion.

stePH in cup: nothing; just finished 3rd infusion of jasmine pearl from Costco

oh my no

stePH wrote:>

Sorry about that it must be a google posting issue where I did not include enough context.

I was talking about Temple of Heaven Gunpowder ..."my first tea (not from a bag)". All of these posts are in a threaded view in my browser. Apologies to different reader/browser users if I did not include good reference text.

John F