Do you rinse or flash rinse your oolong tea?

[wyardley]

This is an easy and useful exercise. In this video, which I've grown rather fond of, the brewer challenges the cameraman to drink the rinse when he asks whether it can be drunk:

Though Tea Gallery used to do a thing where they'd save the rinse in a separate pitcher, then drink it (usually cooled off a fair bit) after the last brew, to kind of see how the tea compares between the start and finish.

[TIM]

This is an easy and useful exercise. In this video, which I've grown rather fond of, the brewer challenges the cameraman to drink the rinse when he asks whether it can be drunk:

Though Tea Gallery used to do a thing where they'd save the rinse in a separate pitcher, then drink it (usually cooled off a fair bit) after the last brew, to kind of see how the tea compares between the start and finish.

I think Michael did it with the partial first brew. Only special tea that we were sure the origin of it which will be save the rinse.

[Tead Off]

I find that most teas do not need to be rinsed in order to remove any debris, dust, bottle caps or dirty bubbles. I'm sure there must be some exceptions especially with some of the funky puerh that is sold as tea.

For myself, the only reason to rinse is to moisten the leaves themselves in order to open the dryness of the loose leaves. This will allow you to begin the first brew near the actual flavor and aroma of the tea without the first brew being brewed much longer than the subsequent ones. If you find you have dirty tea, perhaps you should question the source and try to find teas of a higher quality. This is what the sorting process does at the time of picking and processing whether by machine or hand.

[BW85]

Some teas will have more impurities than others, and with these teas it definitely makes a noticeable difference with the first infusion. For me it's mostly wuyi' and obviously puer's

[hop_goblin]

I always rinse. The processing, at times, involves not the most sanitary conditions. It's like making sausage, it isn't pretty, but it will hopefully taste good!

[jayinhk]

I rinse everything.

[Marcella]

I generally rinse all my teas for about... perhaps 15 seconds? (I count [mutter] to 30 for about 2-3 long breaths).
The people I get my tea from (a local vendor), says that even if the tea is clean, the first brew typically contains all the caffeine, afterwards, the following brews contain no caffeine (and if there is any, I assume the amount is negligable).
I typically follow this rule even for teas from other vendors because a lot of vendors in my area advise to always rinse tea (I exclusively use loose leaf tea), because nearly all of the ones I used to frequent (I used to be a tea junkie, I've cooled down to being the occasional fan now ), actually owned the farms where they got the tea from and I assume since they've been in business for a long time despite the fact that a majority of their teas are expensive (in San Francisco, it's hard for a small business to survive if they aren't good).
I read somewhere that the rinse is like a wake up call to the tea (they start to open up), and then, the following infusions (typically an actual 30-60 seconds and range from 5-6 infusions) are the tea when the leaves actually starts unfurling and the taste is supposed to be better because the leaves are 'awake'.
Hopefully none of this sounds... off-putting, and it's not too much information (I ramble), it's just the way that I've been taught and I like to think of them as rules generally and in my case, it's not really too wasteful (I use a 8 oz. infuser and typically fill it to the brim to the case where water occasionally leaks out ).

[Misou]

I bought republic of teas milk oolong out of desperation a few weeks ago. I knew it was artifically enhanced with milk flavor when I bought it. I did not rise it the first time I tried it and it was horrible! The aroma and flavor were almost cheesy. I put it away for a few weeks.
But having run out of my favorite tea I pulled it out again. This time I gave it a quick rinse - just water on and water off. It made a huge difference! The cheesiness was gone and more mellow milky sweet flavors came through. After rinsing the tea is quite nice and even better than some similarly priced tie guan yin out there.
At least with thus tea a rise is a must.

[Poseidon]

I rinse everything.

Ditto. 10 seconds is a good start to wake those leaves up!

[BioHorn]

This is an easy and useful exercise. In this video, which I've grown rather fond of, the brewer challenges the cameraman to drink the rinse when he asks whether it can be drunk:

Though Tea Gallery used to do a thing where they'd save the rinse in a separate pitcher, then drink it (usually cooled off a fair bit) after the last brew, to kind of see how the tea compares between the start and finish.

I think Michael did it with the partial first brew. Only special tea that we were sure the origin of it which will be save the rinse.

+1 Here. If it is precious, do not waste any of it.

[ABx]

the first brew typically contains all the caffeine, afterwards, the following brews contain no caffeine (and if there is any, I assume the amount is negligable).

Consider that caffeine is added to soda to give it that "bite." If this were true, the first steep would be nearly undrinkable.

[jayinhk]

Actually, no, that 'bite' comes from phosphoric acid.

[Bef]

Fr

the first brew typically contains all the caffeine, afterwards, the following brews contain no caffeine (and if there is any, I assume the amount is negligable).

Consider that caffeine is added to soda to give it that "bite." If this were true, the first steep would be nearly undrinkable.

I think that caffeine has no taste.

See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 6306006507

[entropyembrace]

I generally rinse all my teas for about... perhaps 15 seconds? (I count [mutter] to 30 for about 2-3 long breaths).
The people I get my tea from (a local vendor), says that even if the tea is clean, the first brew typically contains all the caffeine, afterwards, the following brews contain no caffeine (and if there is any, I assume the amount is negligable).

This is absolutely untrue. I have posted on this forum in the past peer reviewed scientific studies on tea extractions which demonstrated that it can take 15 minutes or more to extract all of the caffeine from tea.

http://www2.hcmuaf.edu.vn/data/lhquang/ ... nthine.pdf

theres also http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.login.ez ... 5/abstract but you need access to read it

and I originally found those papers through a summary on Cha Dao http://chadao.blogspot.ca/2008/02/caffe ... ality.html

the 15 minutes thing I've said often came from Nigel's maths based on the results of those two papers.

[Balthazar]

Thanks for those links. Should make an interesting read, I've been wondering about this for some time.