Grandpa Style Brewing Japanese Green

[beachape]

Being a student, I have infinite access to cold water throughout the day and little access to hot water (between classes and the library). My routine has been to do a grandpa style brew of Chinese green in a glass tea thermos (built-in strainer) and just top it off with cold water throughout the day. I let the tea steep very strong in the morning (while I walk to class) and gradually dilute it with the cold water after drinking some. By the end of the day its just cold water with leaves in it, but its still better than plain water IMO.

Having run out of Chinese green, I found that I can do the same with Japanese Greens with an added step. I brew 6oz of hot (80C) water with 5g of cheap sencha/bancha for 1 minute and immediately add another 6oz of cold (refrigerated water) to slow down the process. I then head to class while it continues to steep. If you don't add the cold water it will be much too strong/bitter by the time you drink it. While this might cause the purists to cringe, I don't think i can manage to carry a kyusu in my backpack.

Just thought I would share.

[Chip]

... or simply cold brew, no hot. You can then add cold water throughout the day as well. This works with a wide range of Japanese greens.

[Oni]

And coldbrewing must be done with ice for best results, room temperature water cannot extract the same taste as hot water or ice, so try putting 10 grams of first harvest sencha, i prefer deep steamed for this, and put around 800 to 1 liter worth of ICE, let the ice thaw in you ice teapot on room temperature, you will get ice cold strong tea, put in in a thermos, I prefer glass thermos, and put the thermos in the refrigerator before you pour in the ice cold tea so that it can keep your tea cold for a long period of time, and during work put in in the refrigerator, and this way you can enjoy freshness in a cup, some agrotypes are wonderfull made this way.

[Chip]

If you do not have access to ice, cold water will do fine. Interestingly, I prefer light steamed for this versus deep steamed.

[beachape]

I've tried cold brewing which works well for drinking at home, but I found that it doesn't extract caffeine well and also that subsequent infusions with cold water take a long while to add flavor. Thanks for the suggestions though. I should try ice brewing and maybe making a stronger brew this way.

[Chip]

Ice brewing will not extract more caffeine than cold brewing, in fact I am sure less.

[Wesli]

Whether it's with cold water, or ice water, I don't notice enough of a difference in taste to form a bias. I like cold brewing because of its simplicity. Its big downfall is the caffeine-less aspect, which is a big turnoff when it comes to in-class sipping.

[Oni]

The problem is how to make enough ice, I like ice brewing better, because it slowly dilutes the tea water, at first only a little bit of water is release on the leaves and heat slowly transforms the ice to water and it keeps your tea at a very low temperature, the taste is better if you wait for the ice to thaw, once I tried brewing tea with crushed ice in a kyusu, the only problem is that you need to wait a lot, and in hot summer days waitnig is not ones prime virtue.