Stacking Infusions

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May 5th, '13, 09:04
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Re: Stacking Infusions

by lordsbm » May 5th, '13, 09:04

yanom wrote:After the first two or three infusions:
You'd expect that A & B give different results:

A 5g * 100ml * 15 secs .... done twice (giving 200ml)
B 5g * 200ml * 30 secs .... done once (giving 200ml)

If they are different, how, and also any idea why? is it just because the water cools during the 15-30 second period in B?

This is pretty abstract and I certainly never use a stopwatch in real life but just, theoretically....
Think of it as making soup/stock. The difference of using 1kg bone with 3l water over 3hrs and 6l water over 6hrs. The taste will be different. There's only so much of bone substance to go around :lol:

Back to tea, little thing like steep timing, water type, temperature, tea ware material can give you different taste. The only thing is, are your taste buds sensitive enough really pick up all the differences. :lol:

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May 5th, '13, 12:04
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Re: Stacking Infusions

by gingkoseto » May 5th, '13, 12:04

yanom wrote:After the first two or three infusions:
You'd expect that A & B give different results:

A 5g * 100ml * 15 secs .... done twice (giving 200ml)
B 5g * 200ml * 30 secs .... done once (giving 200ml)

If they are different, how, and also any idea why? is it just because the water cools during the 15-30 second period in B?

This is pretty abstract and I certainly never use a stopwatch in real life but just, theoretically....
In each infusion, the inner contents are dissolved in water. The longer the time, the more tea contents traveled from inside the leaves to water. But it's not a linear trend. Twice amount time doesn't necessarily causes twice amount of tea contents to be dissolved - even when other conditions are the same, the dissolving speed has a lot to do with how much contents are left within the tea leaves and the inner contents of tea leaves decrease all the time.
Also the larger the surface, the faster the tea contents come out. Large volume of the teapot allows more leaf surface to expose.
Some tastes dissolve more slowly than others. Some bitterness and astringent tastes come out more slowly than other tastes and could be avoided by fast infusions (if one wants to avoid them). So longer infusion and short infusion have different combination of flavors.
And I guess there are many other factors affecting it too, such as temperature change that you mentioned.

May 6th, '13, 03:41
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Re: Stacking Infusions

by saxon75 » May 6th, '13, 03:41

Wow, some of you guys use way, way more leaf than I've ever even thought about using. Even 5 g per 100 ml is more than half again what I use, proportionally. At 8 g per 250 ml and what I think of as a fairly short steep--say, 20 to 30 seconds--the young shengs I've been trying have been pretty strong, and some have been quite bitter. I could maybe see doing that for some of the mellower shou I've tried, though.

Anyway, yeah, I know there's not a right or wrong way to brew, but I think of it like I think of asking about recipes. Certainly I can experiment with different ways to cook, say, a meatloaf, and I'll eventually end up with something I like. But it cuts out a lot of failed experiments if I ask around first, to get an idea of where to start.

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May 6th, '13, 10:13
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Re: Stacking Infusions

by Catfur » May 6th, '13, 10:13

I typically go with around 8-10g in a 200mL pot. However my infusions start very short, flash or 5 seconds to start, and going up from there.

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