Wednesday TeaDay 3/10/10 Most difficult tea to brew is ... ?

[olivierco]

Good tea is easy to brew.

Otsuusan sencha this afternoon

[debunix]

For me, the sencha learning curve was a lot shorter than chinese green teas, but that was likely because I'd been flailing for a long time with the chinese green teas before I started with senchas. My first sencha experience was much better than my first Dragonwell.

The key to the greens for me was lower temperature and shorter times, and getting better greens than the low-quality jasmine green I started with. And it took me more than a year to figure out Dragonwell, albeit most of that was months of me glaring at the package sitting in the cabinet, because of frustration on the first couple of attempts.

Bitterness really is a turnoff, so when the bitter comes out, I stop drinking. I have entirely given up on black teas (except for golden yunnan) because of their bitterness, assuming that the problem there is not my brewing technique, but the tea itself. I agree that better quality teas generally are easier to brew and avoid the bitterness, but have managed, through carelessness, to find some bitterness in nearly every tea I have, except for my ripe puerhs.

[artmom]

GREEN!

A good cup of green has eluded me; not that I've had very many. Have bought a scale--will try that next. Also, I definitely learned to use a lower temp for the water.

Golden Monkey in my cup this morning. (Silk Road Teas)

Going to try Den's Teas sample of Sencha in a pyramid teabag in a few minutes.

[leiche2]

Japanese Greens for me. The reason being I brew primarily oolong and black and some whites, which I do mostly by sense.

This is pretty much spot on for me too, except I don't often drink whites.

Started the day with the appropriately named Assam Malty from SpecialTeas. It's pretty much rocket fuel, and I'm okay with that.

[Chip]

Good question! I stared at the list a while and for some reason clicked on Pu-erh, perhaps in considering all the variables in dealing with pu-erh ... for instance young sheng, aged sheng and on and on and on ... it can be down right intimidating to a structured guy like me, very hard to "package" the brewing into a neat tidy process.

Greens on the other hand, fit nicely into my personaliTea and are a breeze for me to brew (which is interesting as I view the poll results), except the very first one I ever had which was from RoT, "Sky Between the Branches" had brewing instructions for blacks on the label. I learned early on and on my own, do not use boiling water for greens!

[JBaymore]

I think the "issue" with greens is that maybe the people who favor greens are highly critical of the quality of the teas produced? "Difficult to make" is such a totally subjective idea. A cup of green that would make one person happy would totally turn off another person.

Actually... this is pretty much true for everything related to "tastes"..... as we saw with the "sushi/sashimi" thread.

I hope this thread does not "scare off" people from trying greens. Even bad green is better than NO tea at all .

best,

................john

[Chip]

I think the "issue" with greens is that maybe the people who favor greens are highly critical of the quality of the teas produced? "Difficult to make" is such a totally subjective idea. A cup of green that would make one person happy would totally turn off another person.

Actually... this is pretty much true for everything related to "tastes"..... as we saw with the "sushi/sashimi" thread.

I hope this thread does not "scare off" people from trying greens. Even bad green is better than NO tea at all

Agreed, it is highly subjective. I guess pretty much everything tea related is subjective, but TCers are a pretty adventurous group, we seek to learn that which we do not know or understand, often to extremes.

And in the process we are often converted to some degree ... possibly because we on some level in our desire to learn, also seek change or at least newness in challenges and overcoming these challenges ...

As far as being scared off, not too likely. We come here and ask questions, experiment, and suddenly it often clicks and the tea sings!

Heh, as I shared, my first green was per RoT's label, boiling water for 5 minutes for green ... if the results from that brewing did not scare me off, nothing will.

On top of this, my first 5-10 Japanese teas were poor quality except one which "sold" me on Japanese greens, all it takes is one good experience often in a forest of bad experiences to put us on to a quest.

[blairswhitaker]

gyokuro... need I say more?

[teaisme]

I've never really had much problem with greens. Even when starting out with japanese green's about a year ago I found teachat to be very helpful in this area. A few of the parameters given out by chip and someone else I forget,sorry, really pointed me in the right direction. I adapted those to suit my taste and have had no problems ever since.

Maybe for me its dancongs. Or a real good high mt. taiwanese oolong. These teas are basically not hard to brew a decent cup, in fact the taiwanese ones are very forgiving, but it takes me a while to find that individual oolongs ideal parameters. It seems like there is much less ability to standardize parameters for these teas, even though they look the same. It often takes me an ounce or so before I really truly hit it spot on.

Maybe its also the fact that if you kung fu them there's so many infusions. It becomes more challenging to get each infusion just right.

[freddy]

I'm still in the learning curve for the various teas I've been drinking. However, for me it's black teas because I have a nasty habit of getting involved with something while the tea is brewing so I'll get back to the tea a minute or two longer than I wanted it to brew. Blacks seem to be, for me, the most unforgiving if that happens and I am rewarded with the most bitter drink.

[Geekgirl]

Longjing is the most difficult for me, with inconsistent results, but I got some good tips that seem to be helping a bit.

[brian]

Even when starting out with japanese green's about a year ago I found teachat to be very helpful in this area. A few of the parameters given out by chip and someone else I forget,sorry, really pointed me in the right direction.

Bingo! I'm sure that reading through TeaChat, together with the updated table of leaf/time/temp on Den's website, started me off on the right foot. A recent thread on 2nd and 3rd infusions of sencha was great help.

[artmom]

Well, I drank more green tea today than I ever have (about six or eight ounces). It was the Sencha sample in the "gourmet tea bag" (pyramid bag) from Den's. It had a fresh, grassy aroma when I opened the outer bag. I used 145 F water, and found that it was pretty much a non-event. Not much flavor, not much aroma, but at least drinkable.

Whereas, when I tried the DragonWell from Silk Road Teas it was extremely "vegetal" and I did not like it at all. Of course, I used too hot water. I'll try the DragonWell again with lower temp and lower brewing time.

As several folk have said, TeaChat has been very helpful with my learning about new teas.

[Victoria]

In my cup this afternoon - the last of my monkey picked oolong along with a tad bit of Alishan to supplement the amount. Guess what? It is fabulous. A once only concoction that I am enjoying fully!

[Chip]

Well, I drank more green tea today than I ever have (about six or eight ounces). It was the Sencha sample in the "gourmet tea bag" (pyramid bag) from Den's. It had a fresh, grassy aroma when I opened the outer bag. I used 145 F water, and found that it was pretty much a non-event. Not much flavor, not much aroma, but at least drinkable.

TCer to the rescue! 145* is pretty low. I would go 160-175* depending on several factors ... but they probably only gave you one bag?