MarshalN writes:

Sounds like you just need to use less leaves Lew!

OK, here are some notes from tastings I did recently using a sample
kindly sent me by someone who's been known to lurk here. (Thanks!)

I should say a few things first. Steep times are in seconds. BLA =
brewed leaf aroma. SBF = similar but fainter. All steeps were in a
4-oz. gaiwan. "Preheated" means that as soon as the previous steep
was poured off, the new steep began with boiling water, i.e. the
gaiwan was preheated.

What isn't obvious is that my normal brewing parameters, the ones I
was trying to improve upon, are not represented here. I've been in
the habit of using 7g of leaf (like the first setup below) with a lot
of very quick steeps at first (like the last one below.)

OK, here are the notes:

* 2007 Boyou Xian Ting Zhi Xing shu from '05 leaves

** boiling/7g/4 oz/double rinse,5,30,30,60,preheated 90,120,180,300,450,600,900,1200

BLA burnt caramel and mulch. Cup aroma similar but more integrated.
Taste very nice, burnt caramel with matching bitterness and good
houyun from the first steep, which is unusual. 2: Aroma more twiggy
now but still has burnt caramel; taste blunter now, with sweetness
mainly in the houyun. 3: Same. 4: Now woody, more interesting again,
but hardly sweet at all. 5: A little sweetness creeping back into the
main taste, having never left the houyun, plus a little herbality. 6:
Aroma, too, is better now. 7: Maybe houyun has perked up after
declining for a couple of steeps? Main taste still woody, herbal,
fairly sweet, but still no late-steep fruit. 8: Just a hint of dried
fruit now. 9: Arrival of dried fruit; quite nice now, but less
intense than corresponding times with some other shus. 10: Same. 11:
Plummy tianshui is somehow more focused now; possibly the best steep
though the thinnest. 12: Thinner but preserving its character.

** boiling/9g/4 oz/double rinse,5,30,30,60,90,preheated 120,180,300,450,600,900,1200

Pretty much like 7g in first steep, though bitterness is stronger. 2:
Same as 1. 3: Balance shifts toward more sweetness; best so far. 4:
Wood comes in, sweetness recedes. 5: Same as 4. 6: Some sweetness
back now. 7: Still has sweetness, plus herbality now; houyun is back
strong after having receded. 8-9: Same as 7. 10: Some dried fruit
now. 11: Now the dried fruit dominates. 12: Actually somewhat weaker
in the fruit department.

** boiling/4g/4 oz/double rinse,5,5,5,5,5,60,preheated boil:120,180,300,450,600,900

BLA caramely, clean, mulchy. Cup aroma SBF. Taste sweet, clean,
immediate houyun. 2: A cereal note along with the caramel. 3: About
the same, but cereal's gone, houyun's faded somewhat. 4: Same. 5:
Liquor's lost most of its opacity; taste weaker now; houyun gone. 6:
Taste brighter again with more steep time, pretty much the same in
character though; no revival of houyun. 7: Similar but actually a
little weaker. 8: Now just starting to get the dried fruit, plus a
little cereal. 9: Just a bit more fruit now. 10: Actually losing
fruit now, getting blander. 11: Pretty nice tianshui but kind of
bland. 12: Same.

I think I got the best results with 7g and relatively long steeps (the
first trial.) It had the best combination of houyun, late sweetness,
and interesting variations from steep to steep. The 9g/long steep
setup was blunter on the whole. The 4g setup was blander.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html