yin and yang of tea

I see a cup of tea as a blend of yin and yang energy. The water is yin and the tea infusion is yang. Understeeped, too much yin. Oversteeped, too much yang. The perfect cup is a proper balance.

I don't like the idea of using mechanical measuring devices to try to achieve the balance. Eg., thermometers, timers and measuring scoops. I do use a timer sometimes but prefer not to.. usually when I have other things I'm doing simultaneously. I think that a proper cup should be made through listening to the water come to (or near) a boil and knowledge of the different sounds of the water and how those sounds affect tea taste. And simply waiting while the tea steeps and finding a natural timing mechanism within one's mind to understand how time affects the taste.

Nothing is more rewarding than brewing a perfectly balanced cup simply by measuring the right amount of tea by sight or feel, pouring the water onto the leaves at the right time and pouring off the brew at the right time, just using knowledge and perception. You will miss the mark more often when you're starting out but after you achieve mastery of the tea experience I think the cups you brew with only the use of your brain will be better than anything a mechanical measuring device would give you.

Reply to
Zarky Zork
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Reply to
toci

Amen to that. There is a most sublime joy in the synchronicity of making a perfect cup without any mechanical aids. I find it most rewarding with green pu-erh, because it is so finicky to all the parameters, and when you get it just so it feels as though you have accomplished a great feat.

Reply to
tea junkie

So true, and it works well when I brew just for myself. But when I have guests and I need to brew in a larger pot I never get it right.

It is very unrewarding when I have just told people about this excellent tea we are about to drink, and it is actually way too strong or all watery and tasteless.

Lars Stockholm

Reply to
Lars

It's more complicated than that, because it's a balance of more than two different things. You have temperature, you have steeping time, and the huge varieties of different kinds of tea. There are three major factors that you can vary to produce a whole lot of different kinds of cups. Some of them are perfect. Some aren't.

That's fine, although I think a more systematic approach is worthwhile, just because there are so many different factors to contend with. And your notion of what constitutes a perfect cup is possibly different than mine. That's what makes life interesting.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

{ZarkyZark]

[Scott]
[Michael} Perfect? Might be in the mouth of the bedrinker. [ZZ]
[S]
[M] ZZ is describing an intuitive dance, and Scott is describing science. Given the choice, I go with ZZ's model. The more intuitive it becomes the better. That's my opinion. A religious master of mine once said to me that there are many paths that lead to the same thing, at least superficially, but the end result bears the prints of the method. The tea will teach you all you need to know. [More M] Full disclosure: I often use thermometers, and I own digital scales. But, I stand by what I've written above. In the end, whatever floats your tea leaves.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

My local tea shoppe is now more or less run by 'staff'. It is hard to find the owner pulling duty anymore. He gets in new stock about every three months. This time he had pre QingMing Fujian which would be my first pre anything. I usually get a cup to go with a purchase so the gal asked if she should use a two or three minute timer. I told her to put the pouch in a cup and I'd worry about it. There was a look of shock and awe on her face since she hadn't seen me before. Parched pre QingMing is more hype than taste. Wait for the rains.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote: ...I snip because I can...

Reply to
Space Cowboy
[Jim]

snip

Jim at the risk once again of parading my ignorance before this disassembled body, what is "parched pre QingMing" in your sentence above? I take it you are referring to Long Jing (Dragon Well) tea picked before the rains...but "parched"? Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

This is a pre QingMing white tea although only identified as pre QingMing Fujian. The leaf look and feel reminds me of BaiMuDan (which is post QingMing with the rains) but with more immature smaller Yinzhen bud and less green leaf. It feels lighter than even the anemic BaiMuDan. It soaks from the surface. I say 'parched' in the sense there is no sense of any moisture content and in the taste because of lack of soil nutrients ie it is more aroma than finish. In my ignorance I was expecting green spring sprout from any pre QingMing tea. I was lucky the clerk stuffed a bag because none on the shelf and she wasn't sure of the amount. So I forgive her for asking me to wait two or three minutes.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Space snipped-for-privacy@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com10/24/06

11: snipped-for-privacy@ix.netcom.com

Thanks, Jim. I understand your meaning better now. I want to say that with these white teas, you get your first little bud as Yin Zhen, the bud and the next leaf or two as Bai Mu Dan, and the older leaves further upstem as Shu Mei (Mee?). Thus, the really delicate tea will be the first, a more robust but still subtle tea will be the second, and a rougher one, the third. I haven't had a decent Bai Mu Dan that I'd call enemic, but it's nothing but a matter of taste.

People seem challenged by Yin Zhen in that they expect a robust tea. This is a gentle, delicate tea whose style is like a lovely spring breeze. It should be hardly ever stronger than that. That's my opinion.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

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