NEW TeaDay 3/3/2012 Tea of the Month Club

[brlarson]

Lots of good teas in February. My fave of the lot was Zencha's 2011 Takumi shincha which put a smile on my face every time I brewed it.

[Stentor]

i would name maiko's "Hachiju-hachiya" as my tea of the moth, although i also had my ups and downs with it from session to sessions, but the
"up" sessions predominated.

Interesting. Some sencha are pretty much the same the whole way through an entire bag. Then others are constantly different. Session 3 today was again different from the previous two. Session one was likely a bit flat due to just opening the bag, which I just mentioned in the what green tea are you drinking topic.

I'm probably preaching to the choir here but sometimes you have to compensate for the leaf composition that you have for that session in order to get more consistent results.

Usually, on the bottom of the bag you'll have the broken up pieces that found their way through the tiny gaps between the more intact needle shaped leaves. Then there are some areas within the bag where you find a more even mix of broken up and intact leaves and finally you have the part that is predominantly made up of intact needles, which should obviously make up the majority of leaves, at least for an asamushi sencha.
If you empty a bag into a tea canister this distribution will most likely be reversed, depending on whether or not you just dump the tea in the canister or try to distribute more evenly.

Anyway, my point is, when I notice that I have a larger than average portion of broken up leaves, I reduce the steeping time a little, and when I notice that I have mostly needles, I increase the steeping time.
This has helped me get more consistent results throughout the whole bag of tea.

The most noticeable effect will obviously be the last 10 grams or so of a 100 g bag where you may even want to use a little less leaf in addition to a shorter steeping time, considering you'll now be dealing with many more broken up pieces than before.

[MIKE_B]

2010 WuYi 3 Stamps Old Bush ShuiXian from The Mandarin's Tea Room.
Tim was generous enough to send me a sample of this tea with my first order from him. All the teas from him were amazing but the 3 Stamps was my favorite, hands down.