TeaChat

My method is as below. Anyone to share yours?


(1) Measurement

Measure the volume of your teapot
Determine how many steepings you would like to make
Determine the amount of tea and water
The golden ratio of tea/ water is 1 gram tea : 50 cc water per steeping. Say, if you want to make 3 steepings with a 150cc teapot, what you need to do first is to prepare 9 gram tea (3X3=9).

(2) Temperature

Pre-rinse the teapot and cups with 100°C boiling water which is to increase the temperature of teapot first so that water temperature would not drop a lot in the step of steeping.
Pouring 100°C hot water into the teapot as swiftly as you can. This is also to keep the water temperature, and in the meanwhile, the force of flush will make the tea dance and further increase the convection in the teapot.
(3) Time

The time of the first steeping should be 70 seconds in order to the ball shaped leaves enough time to absorb water release tea materials out.
The time of the second steeping is 35 seconds.
The time of the third steeping should be twice as long as which of the second steeping, that will be 70 seconds in our case.

You seem to have a fairly long steep time for me way. I'd use maybe 7g for a 120mL vessel, rinse for 10-20 seconds and steep for 10-15 seconds increasing by 5 seconds per infusion after the first 2/3 steeps!

Now, that would be green Oolongs, Tie Guan Yin maybe... If it was roasted it would be a half filled vessel at least (usually 7-9g), rinse as above, then 15-20sec infusions and increase as necessary ... Usually a few seconds per infusion. It would vary per tea, but that's how I would evaluate a new tea and I'd adjust temperature and times etc... According to taste.

95-100 degrees (Celsius) for all Oolongs for me.