It's okay to brew Sencha gongfu style, right? I find Sencha to be very picky about temp and time, and think the best Sencha comes by simply doing it gongfu. There's no pre-wetting involved, and the water is only heated to 160F. I use 7 grams tea to 11oz of water, completely fill my kyusu up with water, put the lid on, and pour the hot water over the kyusu, let it sit maybe 5-10 seconds, then pour the whole pot out through a very fine mesh filter into my second kyusu pot, which keeps it warm longer than any other vessel I got.
Oh how I wish China and Japan would come together to make a yixing kyusu..
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
jdharding wrote:Oh how I wish China and Japan would come together to make a yixing kyusu..
Side-handle Yixing from Dragon Tea House
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
Wow.. looking back on this 2 year old topic.. what a moron I was.
Kids, don't gongfu your sencha, please. Use a kyusu and brew it properly.
Kids, don't gongfu your sencha, please. Use a kyusu and brew it properly.
Jun 8th, '10, 22:06
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Re: Gongfu Sencha?
As long as you're not gongfu'ing it. No quick rinse, quick steep, that sort of thing.
Here's my sencha instructions, just to counteract my previous "gongfu" suggestion two years ago:
Take the water when it's right off the boil, pour it into the pot at least 2-3 feet above the pot. This oxygenates the water and creates smooth tea. Let the pot warm, then pour the water into as many tea cups as it takes to empty the pot. Then, pour the water from the teacups back into the pot. By now the water should be around 160-170F degrees, perfect temp for brewing sencha.
Next, measure out your tea into a cup or saucer. It's usually 1 gram per 1.5 ounce water. Then dump the tea into the kyusu, put the lid on, and start the timer. Why dump? This is the quickest way to introduce all the tea leaves to the water, so there's no oversteeping that occurs from introducing the water to the leaves by pouring.
45 second 1st steep, 30 second 2nd steep, and 30 second 3rd steep. When done, empty the pot by pouring into each cup a little at a time to spread the flavor of the tea around. Or pour the entire pot into a serving pitcher, and use a chopstick to stir the pitcher while pouring into cups. I usually shake the pot till every last drop is out. These final drops are the "gold" of the tea. Best flavor. The umami.
Make sure to keep the lid off and let the leaves dry between steeps. Move the leaves to one side of the pot, and then slightly tilt the pot to the opposite side to let any remaining water trickle over to there.
Don't let your sencha sit for too long. It's good for maybe 1 hour after first steep. After that, it's time to throw it out. Very short life-span once it's wet.
This is all information from tea pro's and my own experiences in making sencha. However, the tea pro's typically don't have a "set time" for steeping. But from watching them and counting the time, I got my steeping times. Though the times are still random between pro's.
Here's my sencha instructions, just to counteract my previous "gongfu" suggestion two years ago:
Take the water when it's right off the boil, pour it into the pot at least 2-3 feet above the pot. This oxygenates the water and creates smooth tea. Let the pot warm, then pour the water into as many tea cups as it takes to empty the pot. Then, pour the water from the teacups back into the pot. By now the water should be around 160-170F degrees, perfect temp for brewing sencha.
Next, measure out your tea into a cup or saucer. It's usually 1 gram per 1.5 ounce water. Then dump the tea into the kyusu, put the lid on, and start the timer. Why dump? This is the quickest way to introduce all the tea leaves to the water, so there's no oversteeping that occurs from introducing the water to the leaves by pouring.
45 second 1st steep, 30 second 2nd steep, and 30 second 3rd steep. When done, empty the pot by pouring into each cup a little at a time to spread the flavor of the tea around. Or pour the entire pot into a serving pitcher, and use a chopstick to stir the pitcher while pouring into cups. I usually shake the pot till every last drop is out. These final drops are the "gold" of the tea. Best flavor. The umami.
Make sure to keep the lid off and let the leaves dry between steeps. Move the leaves to one side of the pot, and then slightly tilt the pot to the opposite side to let any remaining water trickle over to there.
Don't let your sencha sit for too long. It's good for maybe 1 hour after first steep. After that, it's time to throw it out. Very short life-span once it's wet.
This is all information from tea pro's and my own experiences in making sencha. However, the tea pro's typically don't have a "set time" for steeping. But from watching them and counting the time, I got my steeping times. Though the times are still random between pro's.
Jun 11th, '10, 18:31
Posts: 1574
Joined: Dec 30th, '08, 21:16
Location: The foot of the great Smoky Mountains
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
Not a bad guideline for Fuka's IMHO. second steep, for me, is sometimes as short as 15 seconds. But for Asamushi my parameters are quite different! longer steep times all around.JD wrote:
45 second 1st steep, 30 second 2nd steep, and 30 second 3rd steep.
Jun 12th, '10, 09:44
Posts: 1574
Joined: Dec 30th, '08, 21:16
Location: The foot of the great Smoky Mountains
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
What I failed to include is that the reason I bought up Asa..which is if you ARE going to use a gaiwan for sench you really might want to go with asamushi as it will be much easier to control your leaf and particles over a chu or fuka.iannon wrote:Not a bad guideline for Fuka's IMHO. second steep, for me, is sometimes as short as 15 seconds. But for Asamushi my parameters are quite different! longer steep times all around.JD wrote:
45 second 1st steep, 30 second 2nd steep, and 30 second 3rd steep.
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
hi,iannon wrote: (...) if you ARE going to use a gaiwan for sench you really might want to go with asamushi as it will be much easier to control your leaf and particles over a chu or fuka.
you can also control chumushi & fukamushi leaves quite well with a gaiwan :
> use a thin walled one, because then the rim of the walls and of lid is thin and it is easier to let only a tiny space between lid and top of wall before you pour.
> so you pour and at some time the leaves will tend to obstruct
> then to pour completely, gently turn the gaiwan aside so the remaining liquor may find its way aside the little mass of leaves at some other point on the rim of the lid. you can go one side, then the other.
a gaiwan is not so different from a shiboridashi after all, I even would find it more convenient at least for deeper steamed leaves, because it offers more liberty of movement while pouring.
one thing to be careful about with a gaiwan, is preheating if you do preheat : porcelain conducts heat well, so if you want to preheat you should see that there is no drop of hot water left when you put the leaves plus wait till the gaiwan has lost temperature. now that depends on the tea, some teas support preheating and others don't (but there is a topic about that on the forum).
if you pour the water first and sink the leaves into the water, with a gaiwan, you can preheat the gaiwan thoroughly and then use somewhat cooler water for brewing --not that it makes a huge difference but it is one of those details that give opportunities to play.
Re: Gongfu Sencha?
I think we should have an 'Embarrassing things I wrote as a noob' thread! TeaDay Chip?JD wrote:Wow.. looking back on this 2 year old topic.. what a moron I was.
Kids, don't gongfu your sencha, please. Use a kyusu and brew it properly.
