Setting aside the root

[teaisme]

about 10-12 months ago I started brewing some greens and whites with an adjusted root method

Instead of letting the root sit in the pot inbetween infusions I found that with many whites and greens I enjoy it more if I set aside the root.
I brew like normal, then pour out what I will drink into cup/cups, then pour the root out into a seperate cup I put to the side. When it's time for the next infusion I pour the root back into the pot, then add hot water (usually at a higher temp then before when I was just letting root sit in pot, since teapot maintains the heat better and with not water inside the pot cools faster). This prevents the leaves from soaking too long in-between infusions (esp useful if you enjoy taking your time and drinking slow), seems to suit my tastes better.

Anyone concur?

[SilentChaos]

I brew like normal, then pour out what I will drink into cup/cups, then pour the root out ... This prevents the leaves from soaking too long in-between infusions (esp useful if you enjoy taking your time and drinking slow), seems to suit my tastes better.

The root that's poured out, it's leaves + what you don't pour out to drink right

ahh okay...just the liquor.

[AdamMY]

I think it depends on how quickly you want to work through everything. When I drink tea its usually a focused burst, in which I want to try and exhaust the tea ( or me depending on the tea) in a marathon session. As such when I am leaving the root, the root is really only on the leaves for at most 5 minutes before it gets hit with fresh water to continue. I do not consider 5 minutes too long, but I can see if you are doing 5 or so infusions over 2 or more hours, you may not want to keep the root on the leaves that long, as it could cause the tea to fade too quickly.

[FlyedPiper]

I think it depends on how hot you brew the tea.

I leave the "root" in the gaiwan because I tend to brew at lower temps. I think leaving the root in the gaiwan or pot gives a more "authentic" brew Chinese style if you go brew for brew, and is much more important if you brew "grandpa style" (brewing in the same gaiwan... filling with hot water as the gaiwan is drank down and going until the leaf is exhausted)... this includes the "tall glass" style as well... as the temps would get lower over time traditionally.

I like this method personally, but YMMV. Chinese greens are much more tolerant of sitting in the pot than Japanese greens. I tend to go brew-for-brew to get a feel for a tea (or for a guest(s)), and then going grandpa style in the gaiwan for Chinese greens.

Most people don't know how to drink out of a gaiwan so I reserve that for the pros.

[gingkoseto]

I feel drinking from the gaiwan is actually easy for everybody to learn, as gaiwan has a lid and was originally designed for drinking green tea without being bothered by floating leaves.

It seems more people are freaked out by drinking from a tea bowl or glass with leaves in it. It's not that hard to get used to either, but probably out of habit, many people seem to panic on it. Once I gave a friend a glass of brewed tea and then later realized he seemed to be in trouble. So I gave him a fork to keep away floating leaves. It was weird but he ended up enjoying the tea without biting into tea leaves