Newbie questions!!

[brodie]

Hello All i am a novice green tea drinker and i have a few questions i was hoping somebody here would be kind enough to answer!here goes:

when using a gaiwan after the first infusion is done and the gaiwan is emptied of liquid, how would the gaiwan itself be reheated to warm it for the second infusion without removing the leaves?

also i keep reading about this "use fresh water for boiling because if u reboil water you'll boil the oxygen out, making it flat"

huh????how can you boil the oxygen out??water is made from 1 atom oxygen and 2 atoms hydrogen!!!if you boil the oxygen out it would cease to be water,and be just 2 atoms of hydrogen right????

i hope someone can help....

[illium]

now, now, brodie, you're using far too much logic here.. didn't you notice all that oxygen escaping from the water in the bubbles while it was boiling? geez..

as for reheating the gaiwan -- ideally, you're going to do all your brewing close enough together that the gaiwan hasn't lost the retained heat in between brewings. even if it's not completely hot to the touch, it may still be retaining a lot of heat.

you could use a retaining pot, if you're just slow at drinking your tea.

another way to keep the gaiwan hot, and this is a fairly old and common method - have a large bowl of hot water. let the cup sit inside the bowl to keep it hot. remove with tongs.

usually this is not down with gaiwan full of leaves, but there is no reason you couldn't just make sure the water level was below the lip of the mug, and keep the tea in there.

another point about this, however, is that green tea doesn't want to be brewed with as hot of water as other teas. so if you start with slightly too hot water, and some of the heat is lost by transference to the gaiwan, that could bring it to the correct temperature.

also - i'm not sure what kind of gaiwan you have. the fine thin procelain kind gain or lose heat VERY fast. the thicker ceramic kind retain heat longer and also require more to heat up.

you could also just do another hot water rinse. you wouldn't lose much from the tea by just filling the cup with hot water, **** to 3 and then dumping the water out. it would help to heat the gaiwan though.

my best suggestion?

drink faster, keep the gaiwan hot.

Hope that helps,
Troy

[brodie]

thanks 4 answering my questions! i'm still not convinced about the oxygen thing tho - i need a more scientific explanation

this is my understanding :

water b4 boiling = H2O ( 1/3 oxygen, 2/3 hydrogen)
water after boiling + H2O (1/3 oxygen 2/3hydrogen)

if there was any less oxygen in it after boiling it would cease to be water!!!!!

[jay294]

About the water. Water has the capacity to hold dissolved oxygen in it. Yes water is made up of 1 O and 2 H molecules, but think of it as a capacitor that can also hold extra dissolved oxygen. Thats how fish could breathe underwater, otherwise having fish in a tank would be an easy way to convert water into hydrogen for a fuel source, alas this does not work, at least not in my fish tank, for the fish are still swimming around happily. Hope this helps, I will find you a scientific journal article to back up the data if you so wish.

Jay

[spautz]

As you know, water generally has all sorts of stuff dissolved in it: fluoride, calcium, misc minerals, etc. Water also has air dissolved in it -- plain air just mixes in naturally. This is where the oxygen comes from: it's dissolved in the water as O2; it doesn't come from the water itself. (This is what fish breathe: their gills extract the oxygen dissolved in the water.)

When you boil water, the dissolved air separates and escapes, leaving the water with significantly less oxygen. The dissolved oxygen has a big impact on the flavor of tea, so if you lose too much from boiling the tea won't taste as good. This is similar to carbon dioxide and soft drinks: the soft drink tastes best when there's lots of carbonation, but if you leave it for too long all the carbon dioxide will separate and leave, and the drink will be flat and tasteless.

Hope that helps. =)

Edit: oops. Nice post Jay. =)

[brodie]

Ah so you don't "boil all the oxygen out" of water,you boil the oxygen GAS out of water!!!thanks guys!!

[brodie]

Hi its me again with more dumbass newbie questions!!
(rather than start a new thread i'll just add to this one)

q1
lets say i brew some green tea (one infusion) drink up, empty pot/gaiwan of water then go out for a couple of hours.when i come back can i reuse the cold tea leaves to make more cups?or does the 2nd/3rd infusion have to happen while the leaves are still warm?

q2
i, in my quest 4 a decent cup of green tea, bought a tea thermometer. now i boiled the kettle and stuck the thermometer in :100 degrees centigrade, ok seems fine

now as soon as the water settled i poured it into my pre heated gaiwan with tea leaves and immediately stuck the thermometer in: 73 DEGREES !! i tried it about 5 times every time the tempreture struggled to top 75!!

what if i wanted to brew tea at 82 degrees (180 farenhite) which is recommended(most of the time)

don't get me wrong the tea is fine at 70 odd degrees but i'm a bit confused (easily done with me) as what to do!! ive been told not to put boiling water on green tea but if i wait any longer, by the time the water is in my gaiwan it will be below 60

if anyone has any advice i'd much appreciate it