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.