anyone have any ideas to make my life easier?

[Mocha Wheels]

i drink 8 cups of oolong tea a day and because i reuse the leaves for all 8 infusions, i need to brew each cup seperately- it takes me almost an hr and is a total pain in the butt! is there something out there that would make my life a lot easier?

[Chip]

...have you tried a gaiwan? Or a yixing pot? Whatever the case, the brewing should be as enjoyable as the drinking. So, try to focus on enjoying the whole tea experience!!!

By the way, welcome to the forum...what oolong is in your cup?

[Mocha Wheels]

i have never heard of a gaiwan or yixing pot. i chose oolong tea because new studies have shown it to be the healthiest of the teas and because it is so tightly hand rolled i can use the same tea spoon for all 8 infusions. i just hate that it takes so long. i am currently drinking Shui Xain.

[scruffmcgruff]

Try searching around the teachat forum, you should find quite a bit of information about gaiwans and yixing pots. It certainly makes my tea experience much more enjoyable.

[Mary R]

I noticed in your conversation with Scruff that you mentioned that you "make all [your] tea for the next day at nite. it's such a time consuming process [you] prefer to do it all at once and get it done."

You might want to try the 'fridge steep' method. Basically you put your leaves in a pitcher of cool water and leave the whole mess in the fridge overnight. I guess you could put the tea in some sort of infusion container, or you could just strain the liquid from the leaves the next morning. Or you could use a gizmo like Adagio's iced ingenuitea or the Simple Leaf's Iced Tea Jug.

I've heard of people doing this with black tea at about a ratio of 4-5 tsp per quart...maybe it would work with a teaspoon of oolong? I've not tried it myself, but it just might work.

[aqueoustransmegan]

Or you could use a gizmo like Adagio's iced ingenuitea or the Simple Leaf's Iced Tea Jug.

That JUG is FUG....it made the crappiest iced tea ever and leaves went through the strainer anyways

i donated mine to goodwill.

[Mary R]

Oooh, good to know! I thought the holes looked a bit big for black tea, and not frequent enough for decent diffusion. I thought she might get away with it since she's big on the oolong, but it wouldn't be my first choice container either.

[JamieMT]

Really, if I were you (and not to sound too simplistic), I'd brew an entire pot of tea at once, rather than cup by cup. If you get a nice big teapot, you can use 4 tsp of tea for the whole pot, then rebrew one more pot. I think re-steeping the same oolong leaves 8 times is more practical for making each cup as you drink it, not making them ahead of time.

Also, since you're drinking it primarily for the health benefits, you should realize that those benefits are reduced each time you brew the same leaves, so you're essetially getting less and less of the "good things" as you steep more times, if I recall correctly (I may be wrong - someone will correct me if I am, I'm sure).

In your case, for what you want out of the tea, I'd definately make pots of tea at a time, rather than resteeping the same teaspoon of leaves over and over.

And to make things super-easy on yourself, I'd suggest the TriniTea maker...which means you'll have hardly any work at all to get two nice pots in an evening.

Otherwise, I'd simply try to make your tea as you go through the day, rather than all at night. I recently read an article somewhere stating that tea starts losing it's health benefits (polyphenals, I believe) within a few hours after brewing, so you're probably not getting all there is to get out of it by brewing it the night before anyways.

Just a few extra tidbits of information...

[Mocha Wheels]

jamie, thank you for your suggestion, but the whole point of my brewing it by the cup is so that i can infuse the leaves 8 times, thus not wasting any of the flavor or health benefits and cutting the cost per cup by 1/8. the only other way i could think of would be to use 4 teaspoons but brew those 8 times. the only thing with that is then i'd have 4 days worth of tea and i don't want to have tea in the fridge any longer than over nite. also the point of brewing it all at once is that i have all my tea with me for the day. i drink 16oz with breakfast then the rest fits in my water bottle. if i would brew it as i drink it, i'd need to be at a place where i could do it. that's just not practical for me.

[ABx]

Then you're stuck. No offense, but it is the truth. You will have to decide whether your time or money is worth more to you. You can easily reduce the time it takes by using more leaf in a big pot. The secondary advantage is that you will get a whole lot more of the 'good stuff' in the pot than a single teaspoon; I would say that your current method actually minimizes any benefit.