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Re: green tea for guiwan

you see, i'd like to steep in and drink from the same gaiwan. i do this now

>with a pu-erh and it's very relaxing and convenient to prepare in this way. >i've yet to find a green which can do the same without becoming bitter.

When I visited Imperial Tea in San Francisco, greens were served this way -- in one gaiwan. When you had drunk most of the first steep, you were suipposed to add more hot water from a carafe -- to keep the steeping going and avoid bitterness. Is this the traditional way of doing it?

Myself, I like the idea of having 2 gaiwans, and pouring off the liquor, when steeped, into the empty one for drinking. And then pouring water onto the leaves for subsequent steeps.

Joe

Reply to
Joseph Kubera
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Ah, OK. I guess the adding hot water when most of the tea is gone is the key.

This is my first gaiwan, until now I've just made greens in a teeli in a mug or my wife's ceramic teapot.

-ben

Reply to
Ben Snyder

With apologies for my presumptuousness, I'm going to suggest that you're asking the wrong question.

If there really are some delicious varieties of green tea that aren't materially harmed by cooking for what? - 5 minutes? - in the gaiwan as you sip the liquor, why do you want to limit yourself to them?

You say you're after convenience, but really, the amount of manual dexterity and, possibly, concentration needed to drink from a 3-piece gaiwan makes me wonder if that's paramount to you. So why not change the way you brew so the leaves are drained as soon as the liquor's ready? Why not use a cup with an infuser basket or continue brewing in your gaiwan but decant the liquor into a cup or another gaiwan? You'll be able to brew any green tea successfully then.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com9/8/03 16: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

Hey, not so fast there, Mr. Perin --

I'm sort of curious about this myself in that some greens/whites/yellows are surely more amenable to the one gaiwan approach than others. My "method" is to pour off the first or the first and second steeps into a second gaiwan and then after that drink from the beleafed vessel. I also think it's probably a matter of adjusting leaf amount to accommodate, coupled with the speed at which you drink your brew.

It's a pleasure to watch the leaves at the bottom of the drinking gaiwan. Yet another variation on the theme of tea.

In answer to Ben's question, maybe start with a nice Dragon Well. There are so many to chose from. Adjust the leaf amount and see what works. You could just throw in more leaf as you ramble through your day. And, finally, keep them brewing temps down.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Ben,

In your (ahem) "pursuit of teas" that lend themselves to a single gaiwan without becoming bitter, I have come across a couple.

Not to sound like a commercial, but one I remember is from In Pursuit of Tea, called Dragon Pearls -- leaves rolled into balls, and it's fun to watch them unfurl as they infuse. And in my experience it's true, as IPOT states, that it doesn't get bitter, no matter how long it's left on the leaves.

I'm sure there are other teas like this, too.

Joe

Reply to
Joseph Kubera

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