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Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 8th, '12, 02:51
by iheartea
By the way, what is the purpose of a flash steep?
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 8th, '12, 02:52
by iheartea
FlyedPiper wrote:Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.
Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...
Hope that helps.
Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 8th, '12, 15:27
by rhondabee
You can buy gaiwans at many online shops. If you did get your tea from Jing Tea Shop, then if you look on the website they have gaiwans for sale:
http://www.jingteashop.com/cat-jing-tea-shop-gaiwan.cfm
The plain white one is only $5.00. Many online tea vendors that sell oolong also sell gaiwans. Here are some other links:
http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/cat ... ry=8014745
http://www.chinese-tea-culture.com/gaiwan-for-sale.html
http://loongtea.com/index.php?gOo=goods ... t&gcat=148
I use a 120 ml gaiwan for brewing my oolong teas.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 8th, '12, 19:13
by wyardley
iheartea wrote:FlyedPiper wrote:Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water.
Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?
The new ones at Red Blossom are a little large for my taste (about 6 oz; 180 ml), but are pretty good quality. First two ones here:
http://www.redblossomtea.com/teaware/gaiwan.html
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 9th, '12, 01:54
by Oni
iheartea wrote:FlyedPiper wrote:Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.
Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...
Hope that helps.
Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?
If you do not have a proper gong fu equipment, no wonder you cannot make a right TGY, first buy a decent gaiwan set, and after that try out the gong fu method.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 9th, '12, 22:28
by BioHorn
Even though it is not a green TGY, I have tried opening up TM Hong Shui tea with a lower temp. It brought out the toasty notes more than starting with a full boil.
Sometimes I smell a tea. The smell may be incredible, but I find it hard to express it as fully in the brew.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 10th, '12, 02:48
by iheartea
Oni wrote:iheartea wrote:FlyedPiper wrote:Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.
Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...
Hope that helps.
Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?
If you do not have a proper gong fu equipment, no wonder you cannot make a right TGY, first buy a decent gaiwan set, and after that try out the gong fu method.
My gaiwan is only 80-ml. It's way too small for all the tea I like to drink everyday. I just haven't even begun to master oolong. I've been a green tea lover for years and oolong is an entirely new realm for me, but I love the taste even if it lasts only 2 - 3 infusions.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 10th, '12, 03:05
by the_economist
80ml is a great size! Do what Flyedpiper says, fill a quarter of the gaiwan with dry leaves and steep it with flash infusions at close to boiling water. If it is any good at all, you should get more than 3 infusions......
By the way that usually means something like ~500ml of tea for a single session within the span of an hour (assuming roughly 6-7 infusions). That's a good volume I think.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 18th, '12, 14:28
by iheartea
Thanks so much! I'm determined to master this.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 23rd, '12, 01:37
by Oni
80 ml gaiwan is a two person gaiwan, you can get 60 ml of tea out of it, so divide by 2, you can get 6 times 30 ml per person. just use around 4 grams for that size of the gaiwan, try 30, 20, 40, 1, 1.20, 1.40, 2+, these are general infusion times measured in seconds.
Re: Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?
Posted: Jan 24th, '12, 16:04
by iheartea
Thank you for all your suggestions . . . opened a new bag of TGY, used your brewing instructions as a guide and it's all better now.
