which oolongs/water to use with lins ceramic kettle?

[mr. Less]

Hi people,

a couple of days ago my ceramic kettel from lins studio arrived
first of all i want to say that this kettle looks really nice, some real eye candy
i was a little sceptic about altering the taste of water, but it actually does make it more alive and sparkling.
But do you people use it with the lighter oolongs or more with the darker roasted ones like wuyi?
Sometimes i had a feeling that its was almost too sparkling , especially with wuyi teas
could this also be becuase of the water i am using(which is already high on minerals)
i heard the kettle adds some minerals to the water, so i am guessing it would be good usingwater with little mineral stuff in it, or maybe brita filtered water

What do you guys think

[Intuit]

"Sparkling" usually refers to high concentrations of dissolved gases, either bicarbonate or carbonate. You typically find bicarbonate rich waters that are low (soft), not high (hard), in dissolved minerals. These soft water tend to taste 'clean and sweet' and are said to be refreshing, whereas hard waters can taste sour, salty, brackish, or sulfurous. Many drinking waters are treated to aesthetic standards for taste, odor and appearance qualities.

Hard water typically 'sucks the life' out of many, but not all teas, by forming insoluble salts with tea oils. The 'scum' that forms can coat leaves and slow efflux (tea oil solubilization) from leaf surfaces and can also mute aromatic volatile oils that make up the aroma of tea.

Generally speaking, where do you live in Belgium, Mr Less? That will determine your water source..with some exceptions, where your local water provider may have to specify the source in mixed resource environments like Brussels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supp ... in_Belgium

Your Lin kettle - which one is it?

[mr. Less]

Hey intuit, thanxs for the reply

the kettle i have from lins is the 1300 cc pale yellow one , a real beauty

whenever i use to make tea , i tend to use bottled water
i did some testing when i still had my stainless steel kettle and for me then the best water was valvert

Acidity (PH) 7.7

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) 201 mg/l
Calcium (Ca++) 67.6 mg/l
Magnesium (Mg++) 2 mg/l
Sodium (Na+) 1.9 mg/l
Potassium (K+) 0.2 mg/l
Bicarbonate (HCO3-) 204 mg/l
Chloride (Cl-) 4 mg/l
Sulphate (SO4--) 18 mg/l
Nitrate (NO3-) 3.5 mg/l


but it has a lot of calcium and bicarbonates
now i have the lins kettle i have to experiment again with other waters

this is a water alot of people in belgium like but its low on minerals


Much gas (CO2) red label
Little gas (CO2) cyan label
No gas (CO2) blue label
Acidity (PH) 6

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) 33 mg/l
Calcium (Ca++) 4.5 mg/l
Magnesium (Mg++) 1.3 mg/l
Sodium (Na+) 3 mg/l
Potassium (K+) 0.5 mg/l
Bicarbonate (HCO3-) 15 mg/l
Chloride (Cl-) 5 mg/l
Sulphate (SO4--) 4 mg/l
Nitrate (NO3-) 1.9 mg/l
Silica (SiO2) 7 mg/l


before with my stainless steel kettle i did not like it alot, maybe now with my kettle it will be different

[odarwin]

the usual practice for clay stuff before using is to soak it in rice water or porridge water overnight

-darwin

[mr. Less]

hey odarwin,

i did this with my kettle as well, actually i was thinking i maybe soaked it for too long(soaked it a couple of hours),but according to you that will not be the case

could it be that certain waters(bottled waters) go well with a stainless steel kamjove kettle , but will not be good for using with a ceramic kettle?

i experimented in the past and i concluded that valvert, a bottled water in belgium ,was the best for me.the only thing is valvert has alot of calcium
A LOT
so sometimes the inside of my kamjove was white and sometimes white chunks of calcium were flowing in the water yuk!!

but now with this kettle i think it would be best to start over again, and start trying different waters again

also in the past i used a brita filter combined with bamboo charcoal , because a lot of people here went crazy about it.
but i didnt like it at all, the brita filter robbed my tea of aroma and flavor, and when i used the bamboo charcoal with it , i tasted bamboo

so maybe now its time to hit the tea laboratory again, and try diffrent stuff again to find the best elixir

[tenuki]

I would taste test different combos again. I've found that holding the electric shut off on my electric stainless steel kettle down for a minute or so after it starts boiling to extend the boiling time goes a long way towards getting the same effect as using my lin's ceramic kettle. Also having a stick of bamboo charcoal in either kettle improves things. I suspect both of those things have more to do with how the water boils and how bubbles form, not necessarily minerals/clay interaction with the water. I do use a good food quality charcoal and refresh it every couple months as I found some bamboo charcoal imparts a bad taste and it's slight sweetening effect diminishes over time.

If I do those two things in my stainless steel electric kettle I can still taste the difference between the lins and it, but it is a very slight difference. If I don't have bamboo charcoal in the electric kettle, and let it shut off when it wants to the difference is very large. In both cases however I prefer the lins kettle, but since I've figured out how to get my electric kettle close I usually just use it since it's more convenient, pulling out the Lins for special occasions.

[mr. Less]

well i did some testing with two kinds of water

one was spa
No gas (CO2) blue label
Acidity (PH) 6

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) 33 mg/l
Calcium (Ca++) 4.5 mg/l
Magnesium (Mg++) 1.3 mg/l
Sodium (Na+) 3 mg/l
Potassium (K+) 0.5 mg/l
Bicarbonate (HCO3-) 15 mg/l
Chloride (Cl-) 5 mg/l
Sulphate (SO4--) 4 mg/l
Nitrate (NO3-) 1.9 mg/l
Silica (SiO2) 7 mg/l


the other water was volvic

Acidity (PH) 7

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) 109 mg/l
Calcium (Ca++) 9.9 mg/l
Magnesium (Mg++) 6.1 mg/l
Sodium (Na+) 9.4 mg/l
Potassium (K+) 5.7 mg/l
Bicarbonate (HCO3-) 258 mg/l
Chloride (Cl-) 8.4 mg/l
Sulphate (SO4--) 6.9 mg/l
Nitrate (NO3-) 6.3 mg/l
Silica (SiO2) 30 mg/l
Iron (Fe++) < 0.01 mg/l
Aluminium (Al+++) < 0.01 mg/l

i boiled the waters in my kamjove stainless kettle and in my new lin ceramic kettle

i used a fairly simple tea , gan nen its an oolong from thailand, soft stem cultivar(luanze) lets say a nice green oolong

i used the same amount of tea, the same steeping times the same cups etc...



my findings were that the tea made from the lin kettle tasted and smelled stronger, compared to the tea made with the waters boiled in the kamjove kettle


with the spa water, the tea from kamjove was nasty, tasted metallic
with the volvic water, the tea from the kamjove was better than spa, but still
the tea made with the water from the lin kettle was better


so i guess the lin kettle extracts more from the tea then lets say water made with a stainless steel kettle

probably thats wy i used a hard water in the past to go with my stainless steel kettle
i used valvert with is very high on minerals especially calcium
but used with the stainless kettle it tasted good and my tea soup was clear
when i used valvert with the lin kettle, my tea was misty cloudy, and i actually saw some pieces of calcium floating in my tea

my stainless kettle was always full of calcium on the inside

but i think that calcium sticks better to stainless steel than to ceramics, because in the past my tea soup was clear , but now using valvert with the lin kettle, my tea soup was ugly, so i conclude calcium doesnt stick well to ceramic so there is more left in the water(what you guys think)


i read somewhere that a ceramic kettle gets more out of tea and water than lets say a stainless one, but it accentuates the good stuff but also the bad stuff

does anybody had the same experiences or find the opposite is true?
would love to hear the findings of other people

greets

[mr. Less]

hey tenuki, thanxs i will give the bamboo charcoal thing a try

i tried it in the past , but it made my tea taste like bamboo, maybe i used too much in my kettle(now the lin kettle is 1300 cc)

i think so as well the way the water gets boiled does alot too

can i ask which water do you use(do you use brita filters sometimes)

and one more thing, i find the bubbly crispy effect from the water boiled in the lin kettle sometimes a little too distracting,
is there some way to make it a little less bubbly, crispy
(now i just let it boil, maybe i should stop just before boiling, would that make it less crispy and bubbly )

thanxs again tenuki

[tenuki]

I'm lucky to have a artesian well near my house:

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 9&p=128742

I have glass carboys and a ceramic jug style water cooler - so no plastic touches my water. I used to use Fuji bottled water for oolongs and britta tap water for puerh, green and black, but now I just use the untreated spring water for everything.

ps: I don't subscribe to the idea that you need a scientific explanation for things judged by the senses - the explanation can provably skew perception. Just try different things until you find what you like best and who cares why. The explanation is most likely wrong anyway.

[Intuit]

Mr Less, I've sent you a PM. We can take this conversation off line, where it won't disturb the tea fairy mentality of the TC Luddites.

[tenuki]

Mr Less, I've sent you a PM. We can take this conversation off line, where it won't disturb the tea fairy mentality of the TC Luddites.

How Ad Hominem of you.

[Intuit]

On your 'sparkly' water issue.

The higher the bicarbonate and carbonate ion concentration, the more dissolved gas (CO2 and O2) is released when you boil the water, because bicarbonate is actually present in chemical equilibrium with carbon dioxide. When bicarbonate, HCO3, is released, oxygen is also released.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicarbonate

The white precipitate that you noticed is a combination of carbonate salts and a little calcium oxide. The calcium/magnesium salts aren't very soluble. And you're correct, they will 'stick' (precipitate and be released as particles when heavily perturbed by bubbles) differently on clay versus metal surfaces.

An interesting aside: Today, the journal Science reported on the initial identification of carbonate sensing in the mammalian oral cavity:

The Taste of Carbonation
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... 6/5951/443

The gene triggered is carbonic anhydrase, an enzyme that converts converts dissolved carbon dioxide gas, CO2, into bicarbonate ions and free protons (sensed as sour tasting acid).

The article skims over the importance of bicarbonate in central nervous system protection, but it's referred to briefly in the Wiki page on bicarbonate, linked above.

Your Lin Kettle is really good at conserving heat, and this may be responsible for producing just a bit more gas from your bicarbonate-rich water than when you use the stainless steel kettle.

[mr. Less]

thanxs guys, for all the replies

i like both comments, the scientific ones and other ones
the scientific explanation that intuit gave me about the sparkling of the water related to bicarbonates in the water is something i would like to test out.so i will buy some water with low bicarbo and let my senses be the judge of it.
So you see, a happy marriage of science and feelings senses

and i also apologise for my impatience(i am still a young man )
when i get a new piece of teaware, i become like a little puppy
like Stephane of teamasters told me , its a new kettle so i have to use it more in order to get the best out of it and giving me time as well to adjust to it

but hey its fun fooling around with these things, i hope i will never stop playing

thanxs guys

[TeaSoul Shop]

Best water should definitely be not in plastic bottles. Best one is mountain melted water.