Re: I just don't get this about brewing
wow guys
thank you for so many answers
I just got back from tea dedicated trip to Yunnan, gained lot of experience, visited few plantations and pu-erh manufactures, it was awsome.
Anyway, I think I'm starting to get the rule: there's no biblical rule about brewing. I took your advices and tried to brew the same tea in different ways. Some of teas was good in 'Western' way, some of them not so good compare to brewing with gaiwan. For example today I was trying 6 different types of Da Hong Pao in 4 prices range. All of them I was trying in ‘Western’ style of brewing. My observations – brewing this way is more difficult to distinguish lower and higher quality of teas: lower quality seems not so low, high quality seems not so high. (someone of you also said this thing). But anyway, now I think is very usefull to know same tea from different sides (because of different brewing). You kinda opened my eyes, thanks guys
However, I have plenty of free time and lots of teas, so I think usually I'm gonna brew tea with gaiwan and just for experience try 'western' style.
Funny thou, during my first year in China I was using gaiwan as an ashtrey with very convenient cover from bad smell
Also sometimes I brew tea with some glass teaware, I don’t know how to call it in proper English, direct translation from my language would be ‘flask’. It looks like that- photo attached.
Chinese people call that 红茶壶（ hong cha hu）- red tea pot and using that to brew black teas and pu-erh. It’s pretty popular here amongst younger people, older generation religiously sticking with gaiwan. Some vendors told me, that this teaware is pretty new in China’s market. They say it is not the best way to brew Tie Guan Yin with it, because leaves cannot expand properly. After experiments with the same Tie Guan Yin, I have to say, that gaiwan is better for Tie Guan Yin than this ‘flask’. But it’s really nice for black teas. I think I never saw such a kind of teaware in Western online shops , is it unknown there or I’m wrong? This kind of ‘flask’ would be very convenient for brewing even at the office.
I have more two questions:
1. What is the 'Granpa' brewing style?
2. Why tea sellers just don't post 2 or few brewing guides for one tea? In that way they could satisfy more market targets. Or they don't do this way because their tea is only good for one brew style?
thank you for so many answers
I just got back from tea dedicated trip to Yunnan, gained lot of experience, visited few plantations and pu-erh manufactures, it was awsome.
Anyway, I think I'm starting to get the rule: there's no biblical rule about brewing. I took your advices and tried to brew the same tea in different ways. Some of teas was good in 'Western' way, some of them not so good compare to brewing with gaiwan. For example today I was trying 6 different types of Da Hong Pao in 4 prices range. All of them I was trying in ‘Western’ style of brewing. My observations – brewing this way is more difficult to distinguish lower and higher quality of teas: lower quality seems not so low, high quality seems not so high. (someone of you also said this thing). But anyway, now I think is very usefull to know same tea from different sides (because of different brewing). You kinda opened my eyes, thanks guys
However, I have plenty of free time and lots of teas, so I think usually I'm gonna brew tea with gaiwan and just for experience try 'western' style.
Funny thou, during my first year in China I was using gaiwan as an ashtrey with very convenient cover from bad smell
Also sometimes I brew tea with some glass teaware, I don’t know how to call it in proper English, direct translation from my language would be ‘flask’. It looks like that- photo attached.
Chinese people call that 红茶壶（ hong cha hu）- red tea pot and using that to brew black teas and pu-erh. It’s pretty popular here amongst younger people, older generation religiously sticking with gaiwan. Some vendors told me, that this teaware is pretty new in China’s market. They say it is not the best way to brew Tie Guan Yin with it, because leaves cannot expand properly. After experiments with the same Tie Guan Yin, I have to say, that gaiwan is better for Tie Guan Yin than this ‘flask’. But it’s really nice for black teas. I think I never saw such a kind of teaware in Western online shops , is it unknown there or I’m wrong? This kind of ‘flask’ would be very convenient for brewing even at the office.
I have more two questions:
1. What is the 'Granpa' brewing style?
2. Why tea sellers just don't post 2 or few brewing guides for one tea? In that way they could satisfy more market targets. Or they don't do this way because their tea is only good for one brew style?
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Re: I just don't get this about brewing
It has that in common with some of the more precision-oriented types of cooking, such as baking.teageekah wrote: Anyway, I think I'm starting to get the rule: there's no biblical rule about brewing.
In baking, if you stray but a little you can throw off necessary reactions that must take place to get a good result. Without a good sense of what must happen and how to achieve it backed by experience, you're better off sticking to a precise recipe. But there is a lot more room for variation than most people realize once you've reached a level of competence where even your failures are pretty good by most people's standards.
Once I realized tea is similar in that regard, my brewing competence shot up overnight.
On a silly note, I've discovered that even the most grumpy and anti-social engineering colleagues can be reached with baked goods. Wherever I go, my coworkers are happy to eat my baking experiments, even the relative failures. In a research engineering environment, you're bound to get some people who are uncomfortable with most forms of social ritual, but "I will give you this piece of apple cake and then promptly go away again without expecting you to make small talk," seems to be an icebreaker that gets through to just about anybody.
Apr 8th, '11, 11:51
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Re: I just don't get this about brewing
It has been around for at least 2-3 years, but has never seemed to get popular. I guess many tea drinkers just need excuses to buy more yixingteageekah wrote: Chinese people call that 红茶壶（ hong cha hu）- red tea pot and using that to brew black teas and pu-erh.
I think the red tea pot is quite cute. In my last tea shipment, the seller kindly included one of this as a surprise gift. It arrived with the inlet broken. Fortunately the pot and lid are fine. Then I realize, without the inlet, it becomes the Tai Ping Hou Kui glass that I've always wanted.
With the glass and lid, it becomes the Bai Hao Silver Needle glass that I've always wanted 