Gongfu brewing greens and whites?

[PuerhlyAwesome]

Good afternoon,

I am mostly a Puerh/oolong drinker, and I steep my tea gongfu style.. with a 100ml Gaiwan or a 180ml Gaiwan if I'm steeping for two. And sometimes, very rarely, I use a giant 300ml gaiwan thingie when I brew western style.

Anyway, I have just ordered a bunch of chinese whites, greens and blacks from China. And I'm hoping these can be brewed the gongfu way, so I'm looking for some guidance from you guys, suggestions, recommendations and to hear your experiences with brewing whites, greens and blacks gongfu style.. Temperatures, timings, grams/water ratio etc..

Thanks!

(I couldn't figure out where to place this thread, so feel free to move it around...)

[Chip]

I brew a lot of Chinese greens and whites in a gaiwan, almost my preferred method lately.

You can go light or stronger, depends on my personal mood. If you go 1 gram per ounce, then figure pretty short steep times. If you go around half the leaf or less, it can be approached much more casually.

[woozl]

What chip said.
Start with .5 g per oz. of h2o for greens.
White and yellow I double the leaf with good results.
What kinds are getting?

[dooble]

Nice post.
I've just started to use gaiwans mainly as a substitute for the metallic teaballs and I'm never going back.
I find it very hard to even begin to measure the leaves in grams though..

[Oni]

I think while brewing chinese green tea, in a similar manner to gong fu tea making, use bigger teaware, I use 200 ml gaiwan, you could use two 100ml cups or four 50 ml cups or three 60 ml cups to serve other people, or just decant into a big glass cup, but I think the soul pourspouse of decanting and brewing with infusion time is that you can use more leaf and extract only those elements that you like, if using simple glass or gaiwan brewing, you should use 0.15% leaf weight compared to water, so 3 grams to 200 ml water, and leave root between infusions.

[AlexZorach]

I don't usually do teas "properly" gongfu style, but I do often use a system of multiple infusions for the same set of leaves. I find it works better for some teas than others.

There are some green and black teas that it does not work well for. I find it works least well for broken-leaf teas because these infuse quickly and then lose their flavor. Some white teas it doesn't work well for because their flavor is too delicate so you need to steep them for a long time to get much flavor at all, and then after that it's all gone.

On the other hand I've found other green and white teas for which it works well to do a series of infusions. Whole-leaf Shou mei white tea, I tend to have good luck. Also, most whole-leaf green teas it has work very well for. Silver needle white teas, no. Normally I can't get it to work well with sencha, but I once got my hands on a very high grade of sencha which I was able to infuse over and over again without it losing its flavor...it was amazing--and made it more than worth the higher price.

[AdamMY]

I'm actually surprised others on the site have not posted on this thread yet, but alas I post what I've learned from them.

With a Gaiwan you can easily brew greens and whites and blacks, but a unique thing about Green and White tea, and yellow should you find it, is by its nature, you can drink the tea directly from the gaiwan after it has cooled sufficiently. ( I should note that by its nature I mean, it is unlikely to become overly bitter or astringent, and just gets strong and very flavorful). And leave a root at the bottom about 1/3 of the gaiwan full of liquid, and simply add more water.

To start you want to establish the root. Do this by boiling a kettle, pouring it into a clean faircup, and a bit later, pour that water into the gaiwan so it is now 1/3 to 1/2 full, and wait 10 minutes to establish the root. Then add warm/hot water to the top, and drink when it is cool enough ( should be 3-4 minutes later)... and simply continue to do this until you feel you are getting nothing else from the tea, but always drink down to 1/3 full and leave the root to add more strength into the next infusion.