On brewing approaches and devices in relation to tea types

 

5 years ago; of course the basic brewing setup isn't the focus

I've covered this before, but probably never in one short summary, only as bits of opinions in different posts.  A Reddit discussion brought it up, about someone "finally" buying a "real" Gongfu brewing set.  Good for them; that's a nice theme, and a very functional solution to brewing a lot of types of high quality tea.

It brings up a range of different related ideas.  Which tea types is a Gongfu approach best for?  What kinds of equipment cover Gongfu brewing best; what counts as basics, and what extras would also be useful?  How do aesthetic issues and spending inter-relate?  When does Western brewing work out even better, and what other approaches are an option?  

I can offer opinions about all that, but of course they won't match everyone else's.  Over and over I tend to express how the minimum set of items for Gongfu brewing is essentially as functional as a larger, more elaborate, or more decorative set; I suppose that will be a focus here then.  Aesthetics are worthy of value too, more than I place on that range of concerns.  "Feel" matters.  

Let's get into it, starting with a short comment in relation to that starting point, about someone spending $50 to $100 on a tea set (the brewing equipment and a tea tray; all of it together):

For people here who would like to experiment with Gongfu brewing but for whom the $50 range is a considerable expense I'd recommend just getting a plain, white, porcelain, 100 ml gaiwan; that's enough. Then drinking from a coffee mug can seem odd, but using even a small tea cup will do.

Gongfu brewing makes more of a difference only with certain teas, and some are actually better brewed Western style. For that shu pu'er it wouldn't make that much difference, but it is a way to dial in infusion strength, and to try a tea different ways over multiple rounds. Gongfu brewing makes the most difference with sheng pu'er and twisted style oolongs, I think, with Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong versions. Broken leaf black tea and a lot of green tea is fine, maybe even better, brewed Western style. The highest quality range of green tea is probably better brewed Gongfu style, not even dropping temperature range as much as is typical.

cool looking teaware in a Moscow Moychay shop

Already parts of that seem a little questionable for being overly simplified, but that's how it goes covering that much range in that short a set of ideas.  For brewing the most interesting, pleasant, and high quality shu (/shou) pu'er I would only ever use a Gongfu approach, but then that's just me.  Shu works out well brewed Western style too, or grandpa style, or using thermos brewing, all of which I've covered in this blog.  

Why not pause to add some short definitions to make this clearer to all, which an intermediate experience tea enthusiast can skip past:

Gong Fu brewing:  using a higher proportion and a large number of short infusions (rounds), for example 5 to 8 grams of dry tea in a 100 ml device, brewed over a dozen times.  Varying timing is used depending on tea type, but shorter steeps (often 10 seconds to 20 seconds).

Western brewing:  the teaspoon per cup in a ceramic pot method, using something like 3 or 4 grams in a 250 - 300 ml device when a basket infuser or French press is used instead.  You can vary proportion and timing, and factors like water temperature, and use multiple infusions, and it generally works out best to brew the leaves 2 or 3 times, not just one.

grandpa style:  keeping the leaves in contact with the water while you drink, not separating them, in a glass or some form of tea bottle.  This is the most traditional and common brewing style used in China, per my understanding, and as related by many other people.  In China and Japan hot water is available all over, so that you can re-add it to a tea bottle to brew leaves again.  

For extra methodology you can add that water before the leaves are strained dry (the tea is finished), and it will moderate brewing temperature and how hot the tea you drink is.  And you can add a small pinch of fresh leaves to add intensity, and to keep the flavor profile including some of the aspects that brew out fastest.  This is all perfect for a road trip, for brewing tea in a car.

on a road trip way back when

thermos brewing:  now we're onto an exception; you can brew some kinds of tea for an hour or longer in a thermos, using a lower proportion to adjust for the long infusion time.  Shu pu'er works the best, and something quite mild like an aged or light white tea might be ok.  This is probably more about functionality matching demands than it being a preferred optimum in terms of outcome.

cold brewing:  I only ever use this to get the last out of leaves that are half-spent, but you can use it as its own approach, starting from dry tea leaves.  If you put 4 to 8 grams worth of half-spent leaves in a tea bottle, with lukewarm water, in a refrigerator overnight, the resulting tea can be quite pleasant.  It's hard to say which types work best, or worst, since it would vary by preference; experimentation helps with that.

Let's get back to some other basics.

Which tea type is best for Gongfu brewing:  I've already offered my main opinion, best for sheng pu'er, Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong oolongs, and worst for broken leaf black or green teas, or flavored teas.  From there a range of finer variations come into play, especially personal preference related to feel, by which I mean an impression of the process beyond just a list of brewed tea flavor aspects, and also not about mouthfeel.  

Most white teas would be just fine brewed Western style, but many people might prefer the very slight differences related to Gongfu brewing.  One difference is obvious:  with Western brewing you might experience three rounds, and considerable transition between them, but with Gongfu brewing the tea character unfolds over the course of a dozen or more.  Some teas transition a lot, some don't. 

This could be regarded as a bit confusing in relation to Japanese green teas, because the range of different standard approaches may not completely match Western brewing or Gongfu brewing.  I've experimented with brewing Japanese green teas in different ways, but I'm more or less the opposite of an expert at that range, so it's as well to consider that out of scope of discussion here.  

In general more whole-leaf and higher quality versions brew better Gongfu style, and at lower medium quality level, across a lot of types, it doesn't matter as much.  Some mediocre rolled oolong might be better brewed Western style, using cooler water; it can help cover up flaws that would be more exposed and noticeable using a Gongfu approach.  That raises another question:

Does optimum brewing temperature vary by tea type, as shown in tables in tea groups?:  yes and no.  This makes more sense in relation to Western style brewing, to me, when this is used to offset aspects like astringency.  You can get to a comparable but different end result in a different way shortening times when Gongfu brewing, while still using boiling point water, and lots of people prefer to do this instead.  Even with green teas, in many cases (with cases here related to individual preferences).  

Then to some extent the prominence or lack of the flaws that you are trying to compensate for makes a difference; all better and more whole leaf versions may hold up better at higher temperatures.  That may not relate to full boiling point across all types, for Western style brewing, but this generality is something to watch out for when experimenting to determine your own preferences.

What kinds of equipment cover Gongfu brewing best; what counts as basics, and what extras would also be useful?  to me the basic set for Gongfu brewing is what I've described; a plain, white, porcelain 100 ml gaiwan, and at least one simple cup.  Then you need a hot water source, and that's about it.  Plenty of people prefer to use a strainer and some form of sharing pitcher; there's nothing wrong with adding those, which do add functionality.  Tea trays can make sense, adding a way to pour a rinse over tea equipment, or a catch-basin for discarding the first rinse of the tea leaves (most often used for aged sheng pu'er, shu puer, hei cha, and sometimes rolled oolongs).

Clay pots are popular, yixing and such.  People on that page put a lot of focus, learning, effort, and expense into sorting out what versions are high in quality, which clay types are most suitable for what, how seasoning issues work out, and just into collecting teapots for aesthetic purposes, to enjoy seeing and owning them.  Good for them; why not?

As a related alternative any small pot that's not a permeable clay can work well for Gongfu brewing.  The set shown in the Reddit post was glazed ceramic, essentially a variation of a clay pot.  A close friend used a small glass teapot; those are nice, just more challenging to clean.  

Things seem a little more odd to some people when it moves on to gravity-basket devices marketed as Gongfu brewing solutions, like the form used in a drip coffee maker, but smaller.  Really it's all mostly about proportion and timing, but cleaning could become an issue for any kind of durable, for-purpose plastic.  

People bring up heat retention, but often those same people are using devices that absorb a lot of heat, brewing at lower temperatures than others using thinner material versions of teaware.  What good is heat retention when you are losing the heat to warm the device right away?  Then hot water rinses can compensate for this factor.

It seems as well to cut this short of discussing tea trays and tea pets, or extra items like tongs.  For more ceremonial brewing approaches all sorts of gear could be relevant.

How do aesthetic issues and spending inter-relate?  with the clay pots this gets especially complicated; of course quality, function, and cost are all going to interrelate.  And with decorative, aesthetic handmade forms of teaware.  That range isn't only about function, also about feel, in the sense of an impression.  I'll set aside the tea tray theme here too; I don't know much about those.

So in the end one might reasonably strike a balance between a one-sided "you get what you pay for" approach and staying open to consider that quality can vary, and cost with it, but also that paying more may not get you more.

I tend to continue to point out in beginner groups that function doesn't have to tie to cost, that you can use very functional teaware that costs very little.  I've taken this picture of what I was using to brew tea recently:

That white porcelain gaiwan I've bought many versions of in Chinatown for $3, but they tend to cost around $10 in outlets like Amazon.  The cups I bought for about $1 each in a local Bangkok Japanese ceramics outlet shop, but who knows what similar items one could find on Amazon, or for how much.

Let's mix discussion of cups and brewing approach here; typically I'll use two identical cups to brew tea, to pour from one to the other, to reduce the temperature.  The extra cup is usually for soaking dried goji berries before I eat some daily.  That tea transfer stage can replace filtering; the fragments and dust in that cup it would be easy to leave behind pouring the tea from one cup to the other.  The steel cup is for cool water, and the thermos is for hot water for brewing.  It's more typical to use a kettle, and I do own two, one in each country I live in (in Bangkok and Honolulu), but we have a filter system with a hot water outlet on it in Bangkok so I just use that instead.

The purpose of sharing these ideas is clear, isn't it?  In that Reddit sub probably most of the members are under 25, many in their teens, living at home with their parents, or in college, with modest free budget for spending on tea.  I want to let them know that if they shop carefully they can experience Gongfu brewing for under $20.  Or $30; whatever it works out to, but not so much.

handmade cups at a tea and coffee expo; these weren't so expensive

basic teaware a visiting friend traveled with.  that little girl was so sweet.

two more versions from the last visit to that outlet shop

a larger set in a shop, still kind of basic and very functional

the cup on the lower right was the short-lived one; RIP

What else?:  as I consider what I've written an underlying assumption emerges that there is an optimum for every tea type, that results would be best using one approach, and that some brewing devices might tend to therefore be inferior.  I don't really see it all that way.

Feel enters into play.  If someone loves seeing teas brew in a tea bottle or glass teapot then minor variations in brewed aspects could be secondary to that effect.  A main concern with a lot of the teacups is how one relates to the aesthetic concerns, including feel, in the sense of how a cup feels in your hand.

It would be normal to go through an exploration cycle, to prefer one approach or device, then something else later, and for it all to change again.  It's not necessarily that one would be approaching some final optimum, and they were in error at the earlier stage; it could be that these seem most suitable for preferences and approach at that time.

One could even set up some sort of hypothetical normal experience curve, that people tend to follow, although it might sweep in more error than it adds value for being informative.  It's normal to start with very primitive approaches, straining loose tea from a coffee mug (after getting into loose tea), moving on to some basic Western devices, then later onto Gongfu brewing.  Then simplicity can be valued even more later on, versus striving for absolutely optimum results, and people tend to re-explore grandpa style brewing or use of tea bottles.  Of course it all varies in any given case.

I had used a French press at home and at work for the longest time; it works

pour-over tea brewing.  this is from Jan. 2020; I had no idea the world was about to change.

Tea processing and demand shifts in China

 

photo credit Suzana, as usual

that one cup has an interesting story, here

This is really about input from another meetup, but since the points I found most interesting relate to tea processing and demand shifts in China the focus is on that.  Cindy Chen, the Wuyi Origin producer--also ran by her husband and family--talked about these issues mostly related to Wuyishan (Wuyi Yancha "rock oolong") and Chaozhou (Dan Cong) production, but really more related to Wuyi Yancha.  Earlier discussion on other themes was interesting too, and I'll add a little about infusing tea in oil and alcohol at the end, another main point.  To back up a bit related to this meetup context, we invited a number of people we've talked to in small previous group discussions to join together, which included one session with Cindy.  Eight people attended altogether; not bad.

Cindy started telling us about their business, about volumes produced, general background, how specialized orders work out, tied to general processing themes, and about changes in tea awareness and demand in China over the last decade.  Truly fascinating stuff!  Some of it was familiar but the part about a shift in demand and awareness was not.

we saw just a little tea sorting going on

She mentioned some production issues related to different teas, about how Wuyishan growing areas are laid out, and how micro-climate, especially in terms of sun exposure, changes final tea character a lot.  I wrote an interview post about those factors--Making Rock Oolong--based on her input awhile back, which overlaps, and shared some pictures of a harvest season since then.  

The short version is that not only do plant types and ages matter, and rainfall and other local climate issues, and local soil conditions, but sun exposure also does.  The same plants growing on a small valley floor and on ledges, or at the edge of that valley, would produce different character tea.  An example:  initial intensity varies, and the more forward oriented aroma notes, with those ranges more pronounced with greater sun exposure, with tea with more depth and subtlety resulting from partly shaded conditions.

Josh was trying to place this in relation to Japanese green teas, but we never really made a clear connection in discussion.  For those, per my understanding, partial shading prior to harvest greatly increases chlorophyll production, increasing flavor intensity across one range, and to some extent increasing bitterness.  But Wuyi Yancha oolongs are not bitter, at all, given how processing changes compounds that probably would come across that way if you chewed a fresh leaf.  It seems to contradict, to say that sun exposure increases oolong intensity, but restricting sun exposure increases Japanese green tea intensity, but it all must map out in a more complicated form than that.

Onto the awareness changes part.  It's my impression that Cindy was talking about awareness and demand shifts (increases) among a very limited subset of Chinese tea drinkers and consumers, her own customer base.  They are becoming more knowledgeable, and making more specific demands.  I think that the "average Chinese person" doesn't see tea so differently than they did 20 years ago, beyond more young people drinking coffee and bubble tea now.  

I'm basing that on visiting China three times (which is very limited input), and knowing three Chinese families, living here in Bangkok, as more in-depth feedback.  All three were close friends of my kids, and all three we joined for dinner parties, sports outings, attending local Thai holiday events, and to restaurants and the local zoo.  Those kinds of contact give you more time to talk about daily life.  All three drank tea but essentially knew nothing about the subject. They drank whatever local types were in a grocery store or local market, and couldn't describe those types in much detail.  The same was true of a Japanese friend, again the father of my daughter's best friend; he may or may not have been familiar with the concept of "sencha," and drank whatever he happened to buy at a grocery store.

two of those friends; they are missed, back in China now

looking like this isn't about cultural immersion, in the normal sense

Cindy's customers are at the other end of the scale; they know tea.  According to her it has went beyond just ordering much better versions for gifts and such, or liking those for daily consumption, some are onto special ordering very specific versions.  I'll get back to that gift idea, which ties to a broader transition theme.  In some very limited cases Cindy's family do produce "single bush / tree" tea versions, but that makes a lot less sense for Wuyishan oolongs, which tend to be from relatively small plants, that never grow to a size that supports that.  We've discussed how that works in relation to Dan Cong before but I'll stick to what was covered yesterday.  

Over time a limited set of her customers have learned how varying growing conditions inputs can change tea, and can specify which exact type they want.  Not just in relation to oxidation and roast level, but related to ordering specific versions from limited range growing areas, eg. from a certain growing field location.  On the broader scale a lot of customers are appreciating better tea too, without taking those kinds of next steps. They can seek out the types and higher quality levels from producers like Cindy, replacing earlier preference for well-known and mass-marketed volume production blended teas.  

my favorite picture of Cindy, showing one growing area

Cindy said that the status of giving main commercial brand teas as a gift has at least partly been replaced by giving better quality tea. That seems a positive step.  For those unfamiliar with truly high end Wuyishan oolongs, or Dan Cong, it won't work to describe what Cindy sells.  It's so good that I recommend that people exploring such oolongs don't start there, that they experience more moderate quality versions first, to identify the range, and experience some flaws, then move onto what the true potential is.  It doesn't work as well exploring in the other direction, and there's learning involved with drinking medium quality or even flawed teas.

All of this reminds me of some interesting input from a Chinese-Malaysian friend about tea service in a business context, more a formal entertainment theme than related to gifts.  It might seem like I'm jumping the track a bit, changing countries, shifting from personal preference and gift-giving to a third tea drinking context, but Cindy did actually bring up that tea can also play an important role in business interactions.  I'll cite part of what that friend said, a lawyer in Kuala Lumpur, William.  

The tl;dr version is that in business it's normal for higher executives to make an elaborate show of preparing tea for guests; it's expected.

In this message, I would like to share something about the various settings Chinese in mainland China drink teas.

Setting 1:

This setting is deemed to be the most elaborate form, favoured by the chairman, the chief executive officer 'CEO' of a corporation, for having a large room for workplace. The office is usually divided into two section, one part is for work, the other is designed into a room that resembles a teahouse. There is a desk, the height of and shaped like a dinner table, a seat is placed at one side, whilst two more seats are positioned on the opposite side of the desk. A thorough accessories, complete with a hot water kettle, tools and equipment for gongfu tea preparation is placed on the table.

The chairman or the CEO would be the host, serving tea via gongfu style, when meeting another colleague, discussing company matters or seeing a guest to talk over business partnership. It is through such reception with another entrepreneur or industrialist that business deals are entered into. Besides opting for a game of golf or to meet in a restaurant over a six course meals with tea or red wine, both outings are well-liked in Malaysia, as well, inviting another captain of industry for tea into this section of the office of a highest-ranking person in the company is also a very popular form of arrangement, allowing a formal dialogue be serenely engaged between both the host and his guest in the most private manner.

A man who holds directorship in his guest's company would also entertain his guest in similar environment if he himself is also the head or owner of his own company located elsewhere, away from his guest's home or workplace and has similar detailed set up for tea drinking, too, making conversation and even giving of advice and imparting his knowledge to his guest if his visitor is his junior or a newly appointed figurehead. The tea brewing could be put together, simply for the exchange of ideas or brainstorming for business planning and development between an 'uncle' and his 'nephew'.

not even close to the same theme, a corporate presentation I attended in China

This clearly ties into an elaborate gift-giving culture common in China.  There are three other cases (settings) that he described, extending to lower level managers hosting much less elaborate versions of the same process, onto tea house or cafe forms and expectations.  Suffice it to say that the elaborate nature of the forms and device use is only scaled down, but expectations about very particular types of experience remain in place, just in more casual forms.  The most informal form he describes is what goes by the name "grandpa style" brewing in Western enthusiast circles, coined by an influential tea blogger:

In China, the ongoing and trouble-free tea infused in a flask or teapot at home would be '龍井茶' or 'Loong Jeng Cha', also known as 'Dragon Well tea', a renowned roasted green tea from '杭州' or 'Hong Jau' or 'Hangzhou', using a huge wok for '殺青' or 'Saat Cheng', a process literally means 'to kill-green' those tea leaves with bare hands. It is observed that Loong Jeng tea has been a leading tea variety and a household name in China, prepared and served in many a Chinese home. I had personally witnessed Chinese strolling all over the streets in Guangzhou, China, carrying glass canisters of all shapes and sizes made for seasoning paste and sauce, being recycled into drink container, all filled with teas.

Of course we know that green tea type as "Longjing."

Rest assured that my friend is immersed in a form of sub-culture that's much more Chinese in origin than Malaysian, with plenty of direct contact within China.  He communicates that in every such message about those cultural issues.  We last discussed traditional Chinese medicine approaches to healing bone fractures, related to a US friend breaking her ankle recently.  He passed on a version of the Guan Yin origin legend in this post about reviewing two traditional Tie Guan Yin versions (which he gave me, along with a good bit of Liu Bao; he's both generous and informative).

Back to Cindy's input, I'm missing some ideas that connect these themes, about processing steps, and other broad demand shift details.  She mentioned that the main shift seemed to occur beginning about 10 years ago, when better tea uptake really took off, which has gradually increased ever since.  Kind of off subject, she said that the latest spike in demand seems to relate to white tea instead, with prices in Fuding-produced white teas shooting up about 30% this year.  For growing up so embedded in the tea industry and culture she would tend to hear about other areas and types, beyond producing both Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong herself (her husband and his family is from Chaozhou).

This post is already running long, and heavy on tangents, but I wanted to share a description of Cindy I ran across awhile back, from Jeff Fuchs' Tea and Mountain Journals.  It will help fill in the part I can't do justice to, about how Cindy is, which I very much appreciate every time I interact with her:

Cindy is made of tea it seems. Rampant energy, talking of nothing else, she knows tea from the soil to the very skin of the leaf and through the various stages it is a subject that is part of her. Her entire family for generations has produced Rock teas (called ‘yen cha’ locally), named for the fact that the teas generally grow in small terraced plots amidst stone and shadows where the teas must struggle to find a root-hold in the soils...

She's like that, energetic, and a very pure and humble soul.  She shares this experience and information from a place of shared interest, not as a vendor promoting products, and not as an expert passing down wisdom from on high.  Jeff covers that context too:

On this morning Cindy uses a simple white ceramic gaiwan, or flared cup vessel, for ease of examining colour and rapid fire infusions. Rapid fire they are, but with Cindy every serving is something fresh and perfect, though she in all of her modesty claims that she is “only someone who knows tea a little”.

She was born into knowing and experiencing more than a little of tea.  Her young daughters could teach me about tea right now, a lot more than we could cover together in a lengthy span of time.  It's probably as well to move on to touch on a second sub-theme.

learning about roasting oolong as a toddler, with an unrelated boo-boo

Infusing tea with oil and alcohol

Josh--that Canadian tea somellier--and Suzana discussed this more than the rest of us, for Josh attempting repeated trials along this line, and Suzana experimenting with it just a little.  You can infuse tea in oil; who knew?  The tea cocktail theme, and infusing tea in alcohol, is familiar enough, even though I've never actually tried it out myself, since I really don't drink.  This is a nice summary interview article on the alcohol infusion / tea cocktail theme by Tony Gebely.

The main idea is that you can actually infuse tea leaves in oil, and get slightly different results than using water.  Of course that would relate well to cooking, but they seemed to be discussing it more as a way to just check how it works out.  Knocking back a small gongfu cup of tea infused cooking oil would seem a little strange though, and drinking a dozen probably wouldn't digest well, no matter what you ate with that.  They really did go into detail about which aspect notes came out the most related to using different oils, teas, and approaches, but I suppose I was tuning in and out of that for not planning to try it.  I'll just stick to using hot water.  

Josh mentions where he sees this approach going, which is a novel vision:

In my mind how I see my process working is that the taster will begin a session with an infused oil made from the tea leaf their session will be based on. They move it around to coat their mouth and swallow it. Then I make the tea, and using an atomizer to mist the alcohol essence onto or in the vicinity of the tea or taster I can combine the every soluable aspect of the tea in one sitting.

Infusing tea with alcohol seems more promising to me, if someone already drinks alcohol, I'm just not so sure about using it to scent the air.  It could add a lot of potential flavor range to cocktails, and I suppose the caffeine could be a positive input, like drinking Red Bull and vodka, which came up after my drinking days.  Earl Grey is described as suitable for that use, in Tony's article, and gin is described as a popular alcohol input.

Huyen mentioned trying tea infused alcohol in a separate message discussion after that meeting.  She was having some technical problems with sound coming through; not including it in the session may have related to that.  I don't have much to add about that but a picture she shared tells part of the story.  She claims that wine is used as in input in at least one of these, which would explain why the "gunpowder" version is amber, instead of the yellow-gold one would expect from a green tea infusion.  Then again the liquor used in these isn't specified, on the bottle labels.  Sugar and alcohol content are specified. 

photo credit Huyen; that tea infused alcohol she discussed

It's not as if we only talked about tea themes in China and the oil and alcohol infusion issue.  This session ran long, and Narendra provided thoughts and discussion related to other tangents, especially as they related to Nepal teas, which he produces.  An interesting sub-theme came up about how family production and sales seem common in China, with tea production based on a plantation / large-scale model in places like India instead, and in Thailand and Indonesia.  Tea just seems better integrated in Chinese culture, beyond forms like masala chai being prevalent in India.

Only Alexander Zhiryakov also joined, beyond my set of friends and the others I've mentioned, but he was balancing attention with some other demand. We never drifted onto Russian oriented tea issues, or Laos Tea, or the Tea ID testing program theme we talked about in that other session.

Alexander is really pulling off a pandemic look

I haven't mentioned that Ralph was married in the last week; congratulations to both of them!

I'm not sure where this meetup form will naturally evolve next, but this was a cool step, expanding range to include more participants and broader discussion scope.

Huyen wasn't in the other photos.  Teams mixes framing formats when people use phones.

Gongfu versus Western Style Brewing

first published as contributed to TChing

The basic definitions of these two brewing approaches are probably familiar, with the point here to consider why the outcome is so different.  In theory using higher proportion and shorter infusion times should be identical to using a far lower dry tea to liquid proportion and much longer timing, if you combine the Gongfu set of infusions together (“stack” them).  In practice maybe the separation does make the main difference, the experience of transition.  But the results seem quite different, so there could be more to it.  I’ll take two guesses here about possible additional factors.

Joshua Linvers initiated this subject, posting about experimenting with variations of Western brewing approach for Da Hong Pao (a Wuyi Yancha type).  He found that some seemingly equivalent but slightly varied proportion and time combinations gave relatively poor results, versus other trials standing out as much better, although there would be some relative optimum.  In message discussion he suggested that agitation could be a significant additional factor in Gongfu brewing.

Let’s run through a standard description of both for comparison, based on my own preference more than a standard definition.  Western brewing is most often described as using about 2 grams of dry tea per 250 ml, infused at varying temperatures per tea type, often for two rounds at about 4 and then 5 minutes. For here I’ll shift that to considering use of 3 grams per that 250 ml (8.4 ounces), infused for 2 1/2 and then 3 ½ minutes.  I might back off that time even further for some stronger flavored versions, like broken black tea, or use a third round for more durable versions.  Best brewing temperature depends on type, with variations in infusion time used more than temperature for Gongfu brewing to offset intensity and potential negative aspects (eg. astringency).

For Gongfu brewing I tend to use about 5 grams of tea per 100 ml gaiwan (device), infused for something like 10 seconds for the first few rounds, bumped up after 3 or 4 rounds to account for intensity dropping, then even longer later in the cycle.  It’s typical to use full boiling point temperature, or just off that, maybe only cooler for green tea.  But then it’s more standard to Western brew green tea, in general.  I tend to go through 10 infusions or more even with a quick breakfast, out around 15 rounds for more durable or better tea, or for when I use a slightly higher proportion.

comparison tasting; can be informative, but it throws off shifting timing per preference

At a glance the first Western approach brews half a liter of tea using 3 grams of tea (although in practice that varies).  The second approach output might round down to 90 ml, considering space for wet leaves, with 10 rounds brewing 900 ml out of 5 grams of tea, with a typical slightly longer cycle extending past 1 liter.  

Timing for Western brewing was 6 minutes, in this example, but it’s harder to estimate the Gongfu total, since I vary each time based on last round results.  Guessing out one typical cycle might be (in seconds) 10, 10, 10, 13, 13, 15, 15, 17, 17, 20, adding to 140 seconds, which could easily round up to 3 minutes depending on tea version.  It’s worth noting that the Gongfu tea brewed (soaked / infused) for half as long, in total, in these parameter examples. Again variations complicate this; I might Gongfu a more intense tea starting out at 6-8 second rounds, and sometimes use longer later round timing.

It’s not so different, for total brewed tea production per dry leaf amount, within the range of normal variations for specific cases.  Looked at another way the infusion strength should be comparable.

In practice, to me, different teas provide much different results depending on which approach is used.  Sheng pu’er, twisted style oolongs (Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong), and better whole-leaf black teas (like Dian Hong, or even whole-leaf Darjeeling) give better results brewed Gongfu style.  As I see it white tea, green, or shu pu’er often work out about the same, with broken leaf black tea as good or better brewed Western style.  I brew shu pu’er Gongfu style, almost exclusively, so I guess that implies I see it as preferrable, but Western style results are pretty good too. 

Why the differences in outcome related to approach?  I can only guess.  Maybe trying more infusions, seeing that ongoing variation / transition, is more positive in many cases.  It’s possible that I really am brewing teas lighter Gongfu style, in general, and that matches my impression (which would at least partly explain the total infusion time difference).  Two other factors might explain outcome differences, and also why the tea brews for half as long but is still roughly as “brewed out.”

All the pouring in and out adds agitation to the brewing process.  Swirling a Western infusion during brewing might be more comparable.  Also the leaves seem to not completely stop brewing between rounds, when they’re not actually in contact with water, beyond the leaves still being wet.  If you “flash brew” a round, only pouring the water in and right back out, over the 5 seconds or so that takes for two pours, the infusion strength is still significant.  Both factors would enable Gongfu brewing to use far less water contact time for similar extraction, with slightly different results.

a simple set-up for Gongfu brewing

This review goes no further than proposing these secondary causes for variation in results, versus drawing clearer conclusions.  Only experimentation with brewing approaches and parameters using different types would determine the best match to personal preference, which is the main goal.

10 tea brewing tips

Originally posted on the TChing site (in two parts in consecutive posts)

I don't cover that many back to basics themes but in this I'll explain ten ways to improve an approach to brewing tea.

1.  ditch the tea bags and drink better tea

Tea in tea bags is typically terrible; low quality, ground-up dust.  Sticking with an old favorite brand is fine but in the end that usually amounts to drinking bad tea.

Beyond tea bags loose teas vary a lot.  In general if a tea looks ground up (as CTC, crush-tear-curl automated processed teas are, or just broken orthodox versions can be) then the brewed tea won't be very good.  It's difficult to summarize what makes up "good tea," since that can mean a range of different things.  Paying more is no guarantee, and not all vendors can probably even tell the difference themselves.  The look of a website or physical shop tends to not mean much either.  You have to go through a learning curve to judge for yourself.

Wuyi Origin old bush Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong

2.  don't use boiling point water for green tea

Simple enough.  Preferences could vary, and for different green teas different temperatures would work best (per individual preference), but dropping down to something like 75 C / 170 F for most green teas works much better, for most people.  Even lower for some Japanese green versions; it's best to experiment a bit and read around.

3.  don't trust bloggers or vendors for input

So much for the rest of this list, right?  More than half the people offering advice about tea online--vendors included--know very little about tea, and haven't experienced much for varying parameters, checking out different versions, even trying very high quality tea, looking into background research, etc.  Even what I say should be taken with a grain of salt, to some extent.  Most input really would be helpful, it all just needs to be screened.

orthodox Assam in a For Life infuser basket and lid device

4. about infuser devices

I tend to de-emphasize this factor but brewing devices are a critical aspect.  For Western style brewing (the teaspoon per cup approach) it seems to not matter as much; you could use a ceramic teapot, infuser basket, gravity device (similar to a drip coffee maker in design), or even a French press, and results wouldn't vary much.  Some people brew green teas in a glass to see them swirl, which also works out using specialized tea bottles / tumblers, and those also travel well.  Covering a tea while brewing probably makes a difference; volatile components that make up the flavors could evaporate off otherwise.



5.  try out Gongfu brewing, versus Western style

There are two main ways to brew tea; Western style uses roughly a teaspoon or 2 grams of tea per one cup of water, infused for around 4 minutes, often twice.  Gongfu style brewing uses a higher proportion of tea to water and a different type of device, most often either a gaiwan or clay pot instead of a ceramic teapot, tumbler, or gravity infuser.  Different teas work better using different proportions, timing, and water temperatures.  One school of thought advocates using boiling point water for everything, adjusting for strength using shorter infusions.

For many people clay pots make for an optimum solution for some tea types.  Any porous clay material allows for tea components to soak into the pot, and to re-release flavor back into later rounds of brewing, once a pot is appropriately "seasoned."  It takes a lot of research to even get started on clay pot styles, ideal clay types (Yixing, a region also used to describe a range of local clay comes up), how to best limit use to one tea type (how narrow to go for range), and which pot style and clay types match with which tea versions.

gaiwans work really well but clay pots are handy and provide a different aesthetic experience

6.  try varying infusion strength

People tend to have a preconception about what infusion strength is normal for different types of teas, often based on how that typical Western proportion and timing works out.  I wouldn't go much stronger than that (longer, or just infused stronger), but lighter in strength can be nice to experiment with.  Sheng pu'er works better brewed quite light compared to black teas, for example.  White teas work across a broad range, brewed strong to match the thickness and style of black teas, or brewed very light to be enjoyed as a more subtle version.

the same tea brewed at two different infusion strengths (a Da Hong Pao)

7.  consider the water

Different mineral content in water can make or break a tea brewing experience.  This tends to be where dedicated (obsessed) enthusiasts separate from casual tea drinkers, but really anyone could try out using a bottled water instead of tap water.  One might think distilled water or reverse osmosis processed water--stripped of everything, minerals included--might be ideal, but the minerals play a role in the infusion process, and affect the final outcome positively (or negatively, if the balance or type doesn't work well).  Researching the absolute best water for a specific type is nearly impossible but trying out minor variation at home is easy.

Per most input even using a Brita filter could make a positive difference.  One odd trick relates to placing bamboo wood charcoal into the water--not while you brew, in a pitcher of some sort before heating it--to either absorb the wrong types of minerals or trace elements or maybe to add some others.  I guess if it seems to work you really don't need to know how it works.

8.  consider the cup

It's only psychological, I think, since you could drink tea out of a coffee mug, a fancy British tea cup, or a stainless steel camp cup (my typical water glass, at home) and it shouldn't make that much difference.  But most tea enthusiasts claim it really does, and I sort of have to side with that, even though my range of use of teaware is non-existent compared to most.  For people with no budget limits what to try out for teaware is an easy call; choose it all, and see what works.  For everyone else taking small steps in different directions can work; try out a few interesting variations from a thrift store, or splurge and try a beautiful bowl shaped version that looks more like artwork than an everyday use cup.

some teaware does have a cool look (photo credit)

9.  try different teas

This isn't advice about brewing, it's about sourcing the tea and the type instead.  If you like Indian or Sri Lankan black teas (Assam, Darjeeling, or Ceylon) it's still worthwhile trying Chinese blacks, to see how those vary.  Different oolongs can be approachable, not necessarily hard to brew (maybe just tricky to optimize in some cases), and many are good across a broad quality level range.  As your palate and preferences change, and as you try different types and better quality teas, factors that were less important earlier on can influence results more.


10.  make it your own

Experiment, and break rules!  It works to vary infusion technique every time you make tea, or even infusion round to round.  Or go the other way, make a science of it, and try to zero in on carefully controlled optimums through small adjustments.  That second approach would seem to tie together with researching other people's informed opinions more but I guess that could work either way; someone might experiment from the ground up on their own, based on conventional approaches, or read up on lots of crazy ideas to try new things that are unconventional.


To me the nice thing about tea is the range it covers.  It can be an inexpensive food-related interest, with lots of variation possible even at low cost, involving low effort and knowledge input.  Or the subject can be bottomless, involving ever deeper layers of exploration.

Experimenting with microwaving water for tea

I posted a possible explanation for why microwaving water for tea might not work well, and this follows up on that.

I've microwaved water in the past and experienced that fizzing effect mentioned there.  There's nothing as solid for evidence as experiencing something for yourself.  But since I never heat water in a microwave now I don't have any recent experience of any kind to draw on.  And I've never comparison tasted tea made with water heated in two different ways, so I try that for this.

not how my tea infusion process typically goes

Backing up a bit; why else not to use a microwave for heating water for tea

I never did flesh out the hearsay account of why to not use a microwave in the first place.  That earlier post centered on the one guess for why it might be a bad idea, only related to dissolved air content throwing off texture.  The one World of Tea article I had cited was more about debunking a claim that it's healthier, which could only work so well since that original claim was supposedly coming from research findings, from testing.  It would take counter-example testing with varying conclusions to conclusively reject that, and they didn't do that.

Here are some typical reasons cited in a popular tea blog post, in the Tea For Me Please blog:

Lack of Control

...Although you could certainly use a thermometer to check the water afterwards I would would much rather use a variable temperature electric kettle.

Superheated Water

...I've seen some websites claim that this is not true however I've seen it happen myself. Snopes also agrees with me. Placing something non-metallic like a wooden chopstick into the cup can help avoid this happening but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

It Just Doesn't Taste the Same

It could very well all be in my head but I just don't enjoy tea that was made with microwaved water as much as stove-top or kettle heated water... Some theories suggest that the amount of dissolved oxygen is reduced, creating a flatter tasting cup.

It Makes That Weird Froth On Top

Since microwaved water lacks a nucleation point for air bubbles, it tends to make a weird froth on the surface of your cup once a tea bag or sugar is added to the cup. You all know what I'm talking about. I just can't bring myself to enjoy a frothy cuppa unless the tea in question is matcha.

Temperature control, the first point, is a main factor in making tea, one that comes up a good bit in this post related to testing results.

Lately I've been running across more people claiming they like almost all tea brewed at boiling point or near boiling point, and moderate aspect results by adjusting infusion time instead of temperature.  One person even claimed that can work for green tea.  Personal preference would seem to be a factor in this, that extraction of different compounds would vary by these factors.  It wouldn't seem to work to cite one approach and outcome as objectively best for everyone.  It would seem that any conclusion drawn would relate to a case of a process being best per a preference instead, although some degree of informed consensus agreement about that would also be possible.

On the second point, superheating is possible.  Snopes wouldn't lie about confirming that.  But in general it doesn't seem a high risk, or a big problem.  I guess that's up until you get burned.

That third point about taste is a little non-specific, in the more general first part.  Related to the theory mentioned--"hypothesis," per terminology correction input on my own post, but in standard loose English use "theory" works there--according to the solubility curves of oxygen and nitrogen in water at different temperatures there is next to no dissolved gas in water near boiling point; it just won't hold it.  The real problem seems to be that the air could be leaving the water less effectively based on heating method, even though less really is soluble at that temperature, which seems to be the cause of the fourth and last point.  

I'm not sure what else could cause a tea to be frothy.  I'll move on to trying to recreate that experience myself.

The first experiment

The initial idea was to compare tea made with microwaved water with water heated in the typical Thai version of a kettle, a larger device designed to heat water and keep a store of it hot throughout the day.  It's definitely not the same thing as the better variable-temperature versions more serious enthusiasts might use, but it is what I make tea with while I'm at work.  The water source for both will be the same, bottled water, the type that comes in a dispenser.  This version is from Chang, a beer company that also sells water.  It's a bit off the subject but "chang" means elephant in Thai.

I wanted to use tea bags, which I don't typically use, or actually own any of, since that seems to be the standard set-up discussed in related articles.  My wife did some interpreter work recently and snagged some from a local hotel hosting it, made by Dilmah (Ceylon; Sri Lankan CTC black tea).


Some of their loose teas actually aren't that bad but I don't have high hopes for this version.  Tea-bag tea does tend to be bad, due to using dust or finely ground leaves in order to maximize flavor per quantity and reduce cost, and to brew faster.

Simple enough, right?  I should clarify that I'm not trying to "do science" here, just trying something out, checking on a general range of results.  I'm not tasting it in a double-blind process, and there are lots variables I'm not exploring, and levels of potential test controls I'm not applying.  The idea was that I could just run it again if things seemed inconclusive, and that's how it worked out, as a series of three comparisons.


In the first attempt I initially microwaved the water for two minutes, and it didn't seem at full-boil temperature, so I gave it 30 more seconds--not tightly controlled methodology.  I let both samples brew around three minutes, but didn't time it.

First round results

The microwaved water boiled after the extra 30 seconds; it was boiling when I took it out.  It occurred to me that this might throw off the experience of fizzing water, since it wouldn't take many seconds of agitation from the water being at a full rolling boil to help dissolved air outgass.  That's assuming that my prior interpretation of that potential problem was even accurate.

The cups were really small--just what they had on hand in the office, since I don't have two identical versions of the cup I usually use there--and in the end it was on the strong side, not at all ideally brewed.  I'm really out of practice making tea using tea bags.


The microwaved water version brewed slightly darker.  Upon tasting both I realized there was a temperature difference, that the kettle hadn't been maintaining a full boiling point temperature.  It would've been easy to hit a "reboil" button to adjust for that.  Most likely that alone would throw off any results, using two different temperatures, but I'll still run through my impressions.




That microwaved water didn't seem fizzy, and didn't feel different at all.  The main differences seemed to relate to using slightly hotter water.  That tea version was brewed slightly stronger, which didn't work quite as well.  It's possible that beyond the infusion strength difference the proportion of extracted compounds varying accounted for the cooler kettle-heated water tea being a bit softer.  Altogether the kettle-water version was better, softer, with less harsh astringency and earthy edge, but I'd expect that related most to temperature difference.

not recommended, even for testing purposes

The tea did seem ok as tea bag teas go.  I don't drink lots of those, maybe not quite once a year it comes up.  But I did try a Lipton version recently when traveling, their "international" variation.  It was flat-out awful.  I wouldn't want to drink much of this Dilmah tea-bag tea either but it was at least drinkable plain, without sugar and milk.  It tasted like CTC Ceylon typically does, with a bit of malt, just not as much as in CTC Assam, and a pronounced mineral undertone.  From there somewhat earthy flavor range could be described in lots of different ways (woody, like leather, "tastes like tea").


It wasn't really a success as experiments go.  Giving it that extra 30 seconds probably threw off a chance to experience any fizzing and made for a water temperature parameter split.  I guess at a minimum it confirmed that under those conditions the water heating method results really didn't seem to have been a factor, positive or negative, beyond what I interpreted as temperature difference related.

A second try

I tried it again at work another day, trying to recreate the "fizzy" tea effect and see the difference.  That was based on using the exact same tea (a Dilmah tea-bag Ceylon) and the same conditions.  Results weren't so different.

It didn't work to try and back off the microwave time to achieve the super-saturated air condition.  For whatever reason that water was at full rolling boil at two minutes this time (in the same 900 watt microwave), versus not being that hot in the first trial after that length of time.  Maybe that's somehow related to using a slightly larger cup with slightly more liquid in it (?), made of glass instead of ceramic.  It's hard to guess how those factors would relate to the water heating faster the second time.

The tea kettle had just went through a re-boil cycle so it should have been at full boiling point but it was still very slightly cooler--strange.  There seemed to be a correspondence to cooler water working better, again, for the astringency in the tea-bag CTC tea being moderated by backing off full boiling point temperature.  Using a larger cup and more water made for less concentrated tea, which was better.  Again I was disappointed to not get the "fizzing" to occur, and again didn't notice any texture difference in the water.

It was interesting noting how large a difference that slightly different water temperatures made in the tea aspects, which was more minimal in this test version.  Just a little below boiling point--that water in the kettle had just boiled; I saw the indicator and heard it--was nicer, less harsh and astringent.  Of course I'm not accustomed to drinking much CTC tea, and people who do might often add either milk or sugar to offset that, or both.  It seemed like a better test was going to relate to using a tea I actually like, an orthodox version versus a CTC tea-bag tea, so I tried that the third time.

A third trial, orthodox Assam, brewed at home

I tried the same type of experiment at home using an orthodox Assam I reviewed not too long ago (that Assam Teahaus version).  Again the problem was going to be using water at exactly the same temperature.  I do have a thermometer around the house somewhere, just for that purpose, but I'm out of the habit of testing water temperatures, and didn't turn it up for the test.  I typically use a hot water dispenser that's part of the filtration system for brewing at home, which doesn't provide full boiling point temperature water, but it's not so far off it.  I don't remember results from measuring it from back when I was into checking on that, with that final brewing temperature version varying a lot if based on whether you preheat teaware or not.

The idea was to get the water to that point of supersaturation of dissolved air, just below boiling point, but in three tries microwaving water it didn't really work.

maybe just a little froth, but I was really looking for fizz

That water source I used at home is filtered Bangkok tap water.  It's safe to drink unfiltered, or so they say (and I just happened to read a research paper on that here).  There's also an online water quality monitoring system of remote sensor results seeming to support that claim, but we drink it after it has passed through a three-stage filtration system.

It's probably not an ideal water source for brewing tea, but then people vary on what is.  The best approach is probably to test different waters with different teas to find an optimum.  Per online discussion that might relate to a matrix mapping of bests-per-type versus one best bottled water solution across all types (with a bit on that in this experiment).  I've tried out different forms of water in the past but nothing even as rigidly controlled as this loose microwave-heating testing methodology.  I'm an engineer, not a scientist.  Engineers tend to build as limited models as needed to get things to work and then use functional output testing to make adjustments, versus tightly controlled experimental trials.

Related to the one concern I was curious if this water source (filtered tap water) would contain the same degree of dissolved air as water-cooler large-jar stored water.  I'm not sure; I'm really raising it as a question versus speculating about that.


In the first test the microwaved water was slightly too cool, due to backing off temperature to stop it from going to a full rolling boil, and it wasn't a fair comparison.  I was using a hybrid approach between Western and Gong Fu preparations so getting another two or more comparable infusions wouldn't be a problem, but results could vary slightly based on having the tea more or less "brewed out."


There might have been a little bit of minor bubbling initially but it didn't seem to affect the texture of the tea.  It happened with both heat-source varied water versions during the initial infusion (to both samples), and seemed to relate to the tea getting wet initially, maybe not due to that "outgassing saturated air" effect.  At any rate the texture in tasting the teas didn't seem to vary, or seem off.


On the second try the water temperature seemed more comparable, both slightly off full boiling point by a nearly identical amount (per noticing it, not measurement).  The texture was essentially the same and the taste didn't vary either.  Without pronounced astringency in that tea type to begin with that aspect wasn't a factor, as it had been for the CTC tea.


I tried it again for a third infusion, since producing multiple infusions was the theme, based on using those parameters.  Still no fizzing, and still not really much in the way of difference for results, in any aspect range, for flavor or feel.  It's not really what I expected.

Conclusions

I couldn't reconstruct that fizzing effect in microwaving the water for brewing.  I didn't notice any difference in outcome that probably wasn't tied to slight variation in temperature, and later when that was better sorted out there was no apparent difference.  I'm not saying that microwaved water is as suitable as kettle-heated water, just that in trying direct comparison three times over six different infusions I couldn't get any significant limitation or difference to show up, besides variations related to a lack of temperature control in the trials.

It's not easy to microwave water to get it just short of boiling point.  That stands out more in comparison with a kettle that can perform a temperature control function, since jar-style kettles that sort of maintain a heated water supply do vary in temperature output.  In retrospect I could've just heated the water over and over, to try a half dozen or more cycles instead of just using the water however it turned out.  External factors came into play related to that: sometimes my weekend mornings are well structured for spending two or three hours on a tea tasting process and sometimes they're not.

Maybe microwaving water isn't so bad.  Maybe it is much worse, and I missed noticing that in these experiments.  I suppose that the one time you eventually experience your tea fizzing with that "weird froth on top" could be a deal-breaker.

my three kids at the vet; easy to spot which was adopted