Experiments in Water

Water is an important, if not most important, component of the tea-making process. In some ways it's even more important than the tea leaf itself! Another component, though a bit less important (IMO), is the tea ware of choice. In many cases, it's yixing, and there are endless debates about the merits of particular clays, shapes, year made, etc. and how it affects the tea made. I have a general idea of what I should look for in terms of my own needs, but I always encourage experimentation for others, because the fun is the journey, not the destination.

We're always so focused on the interplay between yixing and tea, but what about the interplay between yixing and water? So I had a little experiment to see how my different pots affect water. I could have just brewed the same tea in all of them, which probably would be better in terms of detecting differences, but that seemed like too much of a hassle for me.


I pre-heated all the pots with boiling water, taking into account the difference in wall thickness, with the added bonus of "cleaning" out tea leaf bits, tea juice, oils, etc. Granted, the tea/coffee stains on the cups should have been cleaned, but oh well. I'm not claiming this is super scientific or anything. After pre-heating I poured boiling water in, letting the water sit for a few seconds, before decanting into the cups.


So starting from the upper left, going in a clockwise direction. I must note that it was a bit difficult to discern differences between all of these. If this experiment was being done with tea it might have been easier. The pots on the top are darker clays, all some sort of Zi Ni. With all of them, the water was generally "rounded" out in flavor with a thicker mouth feel. The upper-middle one left a weird off-taste in the water that I didn't really like. The pots on the lower level are more of a mixed lot. The lower-left is a modern Zhuni, the lower-middle is a sand-blended 80s Zhuni, and the lower-right is a modern Chao Zhou clay. For the most part, the water seemed a little brighter and sweeter, with the Chao Zhou clay making the water taste the sweetest. I wish I could drink water from that Chao Zhou pot everyday.

Of course, there are things that complicate the results. These pots have been used regularly, so maybe the change in water is the result of seasoning rather than the clay itself. Anyway, it was a fun experiment.

Happy New Years to All!

Tea Ruts, a Redux

It's that time of the month again...when I start running low on supplies, but I'm over my tea budget so I need to wait until next month until I can order teas again. But unlike my tea ruts of July, I'm actually quite happy to be drinking the same kind of teas over and over again. In this case, I'm mostly drinking Taiwanese oolong these days, and my light roast/medium roast pots have been getting quite a bit of action.

Now, coming from a Taiwanese background, Taiwanese teas (as one might surprise), are the rage in our household. I still have about 400-600 grams of high mountain stuff still open, about 200 grams of lower elevation cheap jinxuan, and 600 grams of recently discovered aged tea (more on that later). So I pretty much never have to order Taiwanese oolong, because it's so readily available.

My latest obsession has also been DIY roasting, mostly in a crockpot. Since I have so much tea, especially jinxuan stuff, I've been using it to experiment roasting. See here for some helpful tips:

Tea Obsession
My Tea Stories (a whole series, fascinating btw)
TeaChat

You would think that I, like any proud Taiwanese, would use the traditional DaTong rice cooker...but for some reason my model hasn't have a keep warm function, so I've decided to go western on this one. I don't like to drink too many green oolongs, so my hope was to give some of my teas a light/medium roast, to mix it up a little. I got a little carried away and charred the Dong Ding...I don't know if it's drinkable.

I was a little more careful and less ambitious the next time, and I had some pretty decent results. It doesn't taste like a true roasted oolong, since that kind of a roasted flavor profile only comes from hardwood/charcoal roasting.

Now, the aged oolong I mentioned earlier. Asians like to give tea as gifts, and the rest of my family, non-tea drinkers, kindly accept said gifts and chuck them in the corner somewhere. Just last weekend, I found some Taiwanese jinxuan (I believe), still in its vacuum sealed bags, original canister, boxes, etc. ... from 1996. That's right, from over 10 years ago. I don't know how much a tea can age in a vacuum, but from what little I know of science, these vacuum bags aren't probably perfect vacuum spaces, and the tea inside probably mingled together and aged a bit.

It has an interesting taste, it's still floral, but not in a dominating way...it's kind of subtle. There's also a better mouthfeel and a kind of honeyed flavor to it. Since I have 600 grams of it, I took 200 grams away for further aging (just another one of my on-going experiments). People have called me crazy, but hey, if it's airtight enough...it will age. Tea Habitat carries aged green tea from 1994, so I'm definitely not crazy. I gave a portion of the aged tea a little roast, and it's a little more interesting, but I'll see in a week when the roast starts to become more stabilized.

Good thing this month is almost over, I'm looking forward to my next big order, which should probably sustain me until the year's end.

Dedicating Yixing

Although I’ve heard tons of interesting theories as to which clay types/teapot shapes are best for what tea, some of which I agree with; however, I think the only postulate in this process is testing a pot out with different types of tea. The method I use originated from the folks over at The Tea Gallery, which I heard second-hand somewhere

1. Pre-heat a yixing teapot (or two, if you’re doing a triple comparison) to account for any temperature differences.
2. Brew 3 infusions gong fu style (I usually brew like six so I can do more comparisons if needed) using a gaiwan
3. Pour the tea into the yixing teapot(s), removing the pre-heated water of course, and save some of the original to serve as a “control” (this isn’t exactly a control, but it’s the most neutral).
4. After leaving the tea in the yixing teapot(s) for about a minute or so, and pour it into separate fair cups.
5. Taste each one, and compare. I personally like to drink some water between each sample to clear the taste in my mouth.

So instead of enjoying my tea, I am doing this taste pretty much every day, trying to see which teapot is better for which tea. My friend WY let me borrow this shui ping hu.

there's something sexy about the water level-ness of shui ping

He’s pretty certain that it’s a fake, but if it is it’s a pretty good one. It has a pretty nice pour, and it even has good floating balance on water. The clay seems pretty high-fired, maybe some kind of Hong Ni IMO. The walls are medium-thick, and it seems pretty durable.

So maybe not completely balanced on water, but still better than sinking.

I thought it would go well with lighter high mountain balled Oolong, because the less-porous clay would protect the aroma better. Comparing with a gaiwan, the aroma seemed a little better, but what I noticed the most was the improved mouth-feel coming from the yixing. It’s pretty hard to differentiate between the two; it’s enough for me to only say which one is better. If you ask me why, I’d probably be a little hard-pressed.

Even though it did well with greener oolong, I thought the thicker walls might make it suitable for medium roasted oolong or lighter roasted Wuyi. For medium-roasted oolong I compared between the Hong Ni, a gaiwan and a Lin’s Purion, while for the lighter roasted Wuyi I compared between the Hong Ni, a Zi Ni and a Gaiwan. The Hong Ni failed all of these tests, so I think I’m pretty set on dedicating this to greener oolong, until I find my own, “authentic” Zhu Ni pot for green oolong and I can return this back to WY.

Of course, this presents a conundrum for my most recent acquisition, a 130 ml Hong-Ni/Zhu Ni mixture (I think), very thin and high fired shui ping from The Tea Gallery. It hasn’t arrived yet, but hopefully it’ll be here by Saturday…just in time for extensive tests. I had bought this pot with the expectation of using it with lighter roasted Wuyi, but judging from the results from WY’s shui ping, the results may not be favorable.

The Wuyi I used for the Hong Ni was more of a medium roast, but I ordered some of The Tea Gallery’s Bai Ji Guan (quite possibly one of my favorite Wuyi) so hopefully it’ll work out. If not, I might just dedicate this pot to greener oolong, and just stick to my Zi Ni pot for all my Wuyi, heavy to light roasted. (There aren’t too many light roasted Wuyi, are there? I wonder if it’s even worth it to dedicate a separate pot to it).

Anyway, the testing continues…

Japanese Tea Galore

I've been drinking nothing but Sencha (and one Kabusecha) for the past week and a half, ever since my order of organic tea came in from O-Cha. I remember when I first started drinking tea, I wasn't a big fan of green teas; the flavor was too subtle and grassy for me. I'm surprised how nuanced my taste preferences have changed. I think I'm really starting to enjoy Japanese tea, because of its simplicity and complexity.

???

It's simplistic, because they're all green tea. I know that there is bancha, genmaicha, some Japanese black tea, etc. but in terms of the type of tea, there aren't as many varieties as Chinese teas. However, at the same time, it's complex because there are nuanced differences between regions, processing, season, etc. I think Japanese teas have complexities in their flavor profile that I can't really find in Chinese greens.

I'm also liking the fact I have so much new information to learn, and it's really helping my brewing technique. Most of the teas I drink are Oolong, so I don't really care about temperature. But for Japanese greens though, temperature matters, and I'm beginning to be more methodical about my brewing. I'm even heating up the kyusu now, which is something I didn't do with Gaiwan or Yixing too often.

It's still frustrating though. I still haven't gotten the leaf amount right, and it's a little harder because I'm sampling organic teas. I started off with 5-6 grams for my 300 ml kyusu, but when I upped it to 10 grams, it seemed a little too bitter. I'm trying 8 grams now, and hopefully it'll turn out better. I had hoped to do a proper review of my teas by now, but it'll have to wait until I'm satisfied with my brewing technique.


Two other things I thought I'd throw out there. When I first bought my kyusu I kept on the plastic protector cover, but after reading a thread on TeaChat about it, I decided to take it off. I like the aesthetic quality of my Tokoname without. Hopefully I won't regret it. I also gave into the Matcha devil. I bought a nice Chawan off Rikyu, and all the accessories and Matcha off of Yuuki-Cha. I can't wait, and I'm praying that somehow everything gets here by Monday.

Experminting with B&W. I like how austere it looks.

Note: Ah, I forgot to mention a small "Tea Experiment" I had today. Inspired by a thread on TeaChat I decided to make Genmaicha out of the crappy Sencha I got from a local tea store (it's actually a decent everyday Sencha but it's nothing compared to what I'm drinking now). I wish I had taken pictures, but it was a spur of a moment thing...next time, next time.

I poured out some brown rice into my wok and cranked up the heat. Almost immediately, a nutty burnt smell emananted through the house. My sister, whose room is all the way in the back, even asked what the smell was. I was surprised by how fast the brown rice toasted. I think it took three to five minutes. I had thought I had too much toasted rice for my Sencha, but I realized that the dry leaf would expand, so I'll remember to toast even more brown rice. Apparantly you can pan-fry Japanese tea to make hojicha (right?) so I might try that next. Another thing I like about Japanese greens: how you can use them even if they've gone stale. I mean, what can you do about a Chinese green that's gone stale? Sure, you can re-roast your Oolong, but you can't completely change it into something else, can you?

Water Quality

It's my firm belief that a tea tastes just as good (or badly) as the water the tea leaves are brewed with. I recall a particular moment in tea-history when I, having run out of bottled water, used plain old tap water to brew some Da Hong Pao. It was a bad idea as I noticed an "off" aroma wafting from the liquor, and as I took the teacup to my mouth I noticed a reflective film on top of the tea.

It was nasty.

I immediately threw away the brew and leaves, because I was so disgusted with the foul concoction. Luckily a few days after the incident my Brita filter finally arrived so I could go back to brewing tea. This should serve an important lesson in the role water plays.

Alot of other blogs have already chronicaled the advantages or disadvantages of using what kind of water, so I won't bother talking about that. I am, however, more interested in the more minute aspects of water. It's too expensive to buy imported water, so I want to see if I can "recreate" the different variables of water without having to pay the price.

Hard Water vs. Soft Water
Hard Water is usually better for oolong and black teas, whereas greens could benefit from softer water. There are water softeners out there that you can use to soften water. As a predominantly oolong drinker, I'm more interesting in making water harder.


Bamboo Charcoal
Bamboo charcoal provides a cheaper alternative to Brita filters for making water taste better; however, bamboo charcoal has the tendency to make water harder, so be careful when using this with green teas. But the harder water that results from using bamboo charcoal is favorable towards oolongs.



Gypsum Powder

This is gypsum powder, the stuff that you find in baby powder (I think) and in most chem laboratories. This stuff can also make water become harder, but I've only discussed this with some of my science-oriented friends. I don't know how much you would add, or where you can buy safe gypsum that could be consumable. When I return home I'll make sure to run some experiments to verify everything.


Ceramic Pot

In the same way that ceramic teapots affect the flavor of the tea, so can ceramic pots affect the taste of water. When I visited Yingge, Taiwan I came across Lin's Ceramic Studio. I saw some ceramic pots made out of purion, which the sales people said made the water taste better. Being a little skeptical I actually had a taste of the water and I can say it really made a tremendous difference. I would've bought the ceramic pot except that I had no space in my luggage. At home I boil water in a ceramic kettle like this one, and it really makes the tea taste better, especially with oolongs. I feel that the porous nature of the kettle enriches the water with various minerals that make the water taste better as well as harder at the same time.

*Added*
Magnet
That's right, a magnet. Now this comes from my mom, who passes her water through a magnetized filter, which somehow makes the water better for you. What does this do with tea? I frankly don't know. Tieguanyin has a magnetized Korean mug that is supposedly good for your health. Will it help tea taste better? Maybe. But when I go home I'll be eager to test this out. If it does make tea taste better then I'll have to apologize to my mom for making fun of her for "magnetizing" water.