How much room does tea really need inside your vessel?

[PolyhymnianMuse]

I know its mentioned too many places to start naming that tea needs adequate room inside your pot to produce the best tea. I started to wonder how much truth there is to this, I mean I use as much as 10 grams (in about 4-6oz depending what I'm brewing in) per session sometimes when gongfu is taking place.

Thoughts?

[Herb_Master]

I know its mentioned too many places to start naming that tea needs adequate room inside your pot to produce the best tea. I started to wonder how much truth there is to this, I mean I use as much as 10 grams (in about 4-6oz depending what I'm brewing in) per session sometimes when gongfu is taking place.

Thoughts?

I have had the same thoughts - interrupting my tea appreciation analysis for Dan Congs and Anxi Oolongs.

I like to put a decent load in both Gaiwan and Yixing and they always seem to be practically full halfway through the infusions.

Several more experienced Oolong lovers on these boards suggest their preferred methods tend towards packing the vessel and doing lots of flash steeps - which must make it extremely difficult for the leaf to unfurl to its utmost. I can see the bonus being that as the infusions proceed that there will be bits of leaf that still have some of the tea elements in that have already been fully leached from other leaves, and indeed all the leaves in a sparser loading.

However like you I continually see reference to the tea needing room to unfurl ?

Perhaps the roominess message is aimed mainly at tea styles other than Oolong, or aimed at trying to appreciate all the nuances of the tea in 1 infusion. The latter may be true because Imen [contrary to her general advice for appreciating DanCong] suggests with a brand new tea that you have not had before - put 1gm in a 120ml Gaiwan and steep for 2 minutes.

[Sydney]

I think best results are usually obtainable by ensuring that there's enough room for maximum surface area exposure of the leaf as it absorbs water and expands.

[Herb_Master]

I think best results are usually obtainable by ensuring that there's enough room for maximum surface area exposure of the leaf as it absorbs water and expands.

I can believe that is the case with Western Style Brewing, but it seems to fly in the face of most peoples preferred use in Gong Fu brewing!

[gingkoseto]

My habit is, if it's curled shape oolong, I would like to see the wet leaves expand to fully fill the vessel. But if it's strip shaped oolong, like bai hao oolong or dan cong, I would like to have extra space in the teapot. I can't explain why and am not sure at all if it's the optimal way, so far I have just been doing it without thinking much

Something off the topic but somewhat related to it. I used to use gaiwan only for green tea and sometimes keemun black tea. Then encouraged by some posts here I risked burning my fingers and started to use gaiwan for oolongs. I like the way a lot, and use it a lot. Then from time to time, I tend to go back to teapot for dan cong. The reason is exactly that I like to leave extra space in the teapot and shake the pot after an infusion (to get rid of extra water, and it's really much more tedious and less graceful than gaiwan brewing ). I like to shake the teapot hard and feel the leaves jumping in the pot and this can't be done with a gaiwan (or I am too clumsy to do it with a gaiwan). I do notice that with a teapot and the hard shaking, I usually get the dan cong leaves more fully expanded than if I use a gaiwan without hard shaking.

[scruffmcgruff]

If your goal is to produce many infusions, as with gong fu, a high surface area to volume ratio should actually be counterproductive. Whether maximizing the number of infusions is your goal is another matter, I just thought I'd throw that out there.

[chrl42]

Don't accuse me of telling a false info (I don't even fully trust), but I type what's been heard and read from several books and blogs.

For Oolong, small capacity is better, because Oolong leaves are big, small capacity enables to keep the leaves unfurl, that holds aroma and enables to continue more brewing, indeed Gongfu Zhuni pots are mostly small.

For Puerh, large capacity is better..I don't know why, for me it was just better that leaves don't block the pouring.

I don't even listen to those, I just keep any pot strictly under 150ml, shape doesn't matter.

[Herb_Master]

I agree with Scruff and Chrl, with GongFu the successive infusions would tend to become 1 dimensional with different layers of flavour taken of with each infusion if the leaf were wholly exposed but with tighter packing each infusion can be multi dimensional with surprise combinations.