Tie Guan Yin - What am I doing wrong?

[iheartea]

By the way, what is the purpose of a flash steep?

[iheartea]

Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.

Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...

Hope that helps.

Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?

[rhondabee]

You can buy gaiwans at many online shops. If you did get your tea from Jing Tea Shop, then if you look on the website they have gaiwans for sale:

http://www.jingteashop.com/cat-jing-tea-shop-gaiwan.cfm

The plain white one is only $5.00. Many online tea vendors that sell oolong also sell gaiwans. Here are some other links:

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/cat ... ry=8014745

http://www.chinese-tea-culture.com/gaiwan-for-sale.html

http://loongtea.com/index.php?gOo=goods ... t&gcat=148

I use a 120 ml gaiwan for brewing my oolong teas.

[wyardley]

Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water.

Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?

The new ones at Red Blossom are a little large for my taste (about 6 oz; 180 ml), but are pretty good quality. First two ones here:

http://www.redblossomtea.com/teaware/gaiwan.html

[Oni]

Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.

Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...

Hope that helps.

Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?

If you do not have a proper gong fu equipment, no wonder you cannot make a right TGY, first buy a decent gaiwan set, and after that try out the gong fu method.

[BioHorn]

Even though it is not a green TGY, I have tried opening up TM Hong Shui tea with a lower temp. It brought out the toasty notes more than starting with a full boil.

Sometimes I smell a tea. The smell may be incredible, but I find it hard to express it as fully in the brew.

[iheartea]

Get a 80-120 ml gaiwan. Preheat with boiling water. Fill 25% full with TGY. Do a flash steep (as fast as you can pour the water in and out). Discard this brew. Brew subsequent brews 3-5 seconds until the tea gets weak. Add time as needed.

Always boiling water- let it stop bubbling then it's ready to use. The leaves should be filling the gaiwan by steep 5 or so. If not you didn't use enough leaf...

Hope that helps.

Where can I buy a 120-ml or larger gaiwan?

If you do not have a proper gong fu equipment, no wonder you cannot make a right TGY, first buy a decent gaiwan set, and after that try out the gong fu method.

My gaiwan is only 80-ml. It's way too small for all the tea I like to drink everyday. I just haven't even begun to master oolong. I've been a green tea lover for years and oolong is an entirely new realm for me, but I love the taste even if it lasts only 2 - 3 infusions.

[the_economist]

80ml is a great size! Do what Flyedpiper says, fill a quarter of the gaiwan with dry leaves and steep it with flash infusions at close to boiling water. If it is any good at all, you should get more than 3 infusions......

By the way that usually means something like ~500ml of tea for a single session within the span of an hour (assuming roughly 6-7 infusions). That's a good volume I think.

[iheartea]

Thanks so much! I'm determined to master this.

[Oni]

80 ml gaiwan is a two person gaiwan, you can get 60 ml of tea out of it, so divide by 2, you can get 6 times 30 ml per person. just use around 4 grams for that size of the gaiwan, try 30, 20, 40, 1, 1.20, 1.40, 2+, these are general infusion times measured in seconds.

[iheartea]

Thank you for all your suggestions . . . opened a new bag of TGY, used your brewing instructions as a guide and it's all better now.