Dominic T. wrote:
> On Apr 27, 9:50 am, AK > wrote:
>> Dominic T. wrote:
>>> On Apr 27, 7:45 am, AK > wrote:
>>>> How much water do you heat up at a time and how do you keep it hot?
>>>> I almost never use gaiwan lately because it's too much hassle to go
>>>> to the kitchen and heat up more water and I don't like the taste of
>>>> water boiled with an electric kettle.. other than that I'd love to
>>>> use gaiwans more often. I end up only drinking blacks, greens and
>>>> yellows because of this. -ak
>>> Often I do use an electric kettle, one of which has a temp hold
>>> feature and one that does not. At work I use the water cooler/heater
>>> which is a local PA spring water and I turn the thermostat all the way
>>> up so I get ~195-200 degrees. I actually don't heat and reheat the
>>> water very often, in fact because I drink many teas that take lower
>>> temps i make the first brew and then just make subsequent brews with
>>> the water at whatever temp it remains to be. Many swear by adding heat
>>> for each subsequent brew, but with greens I find that it's not really
>>> necessary for many... the descending heat does just fine, I may up the
>>> steep time a bit but that's all. Yellows also do great like this.
>>> Same thing could be done with a kettle on the stove, heat it up once
>>> and keep using it. I often give the same treatment to oolongs and
>>> blacks without a major issue. There is an art to it that took me a
>>> while to perfect and to match to my tastes but it can be done with a
>>> little effort. The big thing is to find a kettle that keeps the heat
>>> really well or I'd imagine you could pour off to a nice glass vacuum
>>> thermos and use that for each brewing after the first.
>>> - Dominic
>> That's pretty much what I've tried to do many times but it's always
>> a bit off. I mean, if I heat up about 4 gaiwans worth (I have a very
>> small gaiwan), then it's perfect but then I have to heat up the kettle
>> once again.. Basically, it comes down to spending ~7 minutes to make
>> a 3-cup pot vs. spending at least ~45 minutes hanging around the kitchen,
>> heating kettle 2-3 times, timing the infusions right, and drinking
>> the tea leasurely. I could speed the whole thing up but then I have
>> to drink it too fast and that's no fun. If I could work in the kitchen
>> on the laptop, I would probably adjust eventually, but I hate the
>> laptop's keyboard.
>>
>> What I end up doing is this: I have two 3-cup glass pots and I brew
>> in one of them, with no infuser, and then decant into the second one.
>> I have to say I was never able to make greens and yellows in a gaiwan
>> as nicely as I get them with this method, although I haven't tried
>> that many times. But.. it's just hard to imagine that it's possible
>> to make better green, yellow and black tea than that - very often
>> it comes out just perfect; I do like light tea--I think part of
>> the advantage of a gaiwan is that it's possible to make much stronger
>> tea without adding too much astringency and sourness; but light
>> tea suits me even better.
>>
>> So, my only problem is oolongs and puerhs. The funny thing is that
>> I keep buying them and I do like them so they just keep accumulating
>> and... it's a good thing that they don't go stale! (well, greener
>> oolongs might..). But I found that I can make green oolongs quite
>> nicely with glass pots, too, with less leaf and longer infusions.
>>
>> What I really need is one of those butane portable burners they
>> sell in some stores in chinatown. I saw one for only $15 and I'm
>> still kicking myself that I didn't get it back then.. That will
>> solve my puerh and oolong problem! -ak
>
> Oh, well maybe we are on two different pages. Let me step back and
> kind of qualify what I was saying. For me 3-4 gaiwans is what I am
> aiming for in a typical brewing, not speed or volume which may be more
> of where I misunderstood your initial question. I can probably get 4-5
> gaiwans brewed with one heated pot of water, so probably 400-600ml
> (14-20oz.) of tea which doesn't really require any time investment
> beyond the initial "boil" of maybe 5-7 minutes and a couple trips back
> to the kettle for more water. At most I might reheat the water once
> more or heat a fresh pot to boil for the last rounds or if I've spread
> it out over a longer time period and the water has cooled.

I have a gaiwan that's about 1.5-2oz, that might be part of the reason
why it's more labour intensive, but I feel there's an advantage, too,
because you can fill it up with enough leaf that when it expands, it
fills the whole volume and I think that keeps flavor from getting
stale longer between rounds of infusion. That's another thing I know
people do with gaiwans but I was never able to - leaving them for a
relatively long time (i.e. longer than 20mins) between rounds of
infusion, that is to say, first a few infusions out of the first boiled
kettle, then some interval longer than 20mins, then a few more infusions
- and so on: for me, I begin to notice a very, very tiny change of taste
after about 20 minutes passing (unless I keep making new infusions).

Actually now that I think about it, a larger gaiwan may keep it there
longer..

>
> Something like a Zojirushi small-mid sized kettle might work for you
> if you can get past the aversion to electric heat as they can be set
> and keep the water at the right temp and there is no "wasted" time or
> effort. I can't see butane being preferable to electric as it is going
> to possibly impart an actual taste or at least fumes which aren't the
> most pleasant.

I got a Zoji, but it's even worse than a regular electric pot. I suspect
it's because of slow heating, or maybe because of teflon. It was a waste
of $120, and by far the most expensive failed tea experiment for me
(unless you add up all the teas that turned out lousy). Come to think of
it, my issue with the regular electric kettle may be because of the
bright, chrome-covered steel on the inside, my regular kettle is a le
creuset with enamel coating and it works great, I've also had very good
results with a cheap whistler glass kettle, and I suspect the issue with
electric kettle is a consequence of water boiled in it having a slight
metallic (bright) taste. If you lick a chromed metal surface you'll get
the same taste, but not for enamel covered steel, and of course not glass.

I had an idea that if I run about a thousand or maybe 500 cycles of
water through the kettle, the steel will wear down and the taste will
improve, but that's a lot of electricty wasted, so I might try doing
that to prep water when cooking.

>
> I don't do a ton of Puerh or green oolongs and when I do those tend
> not to find their way to my gaiwan anyhow. That's mostly the domain of
> Yixing for me. It took me a considerable amount of time to finally
> settle on my gaiwans and to proclaim that they have "won." I struggled
> and went back and forth over time, but for me they finally proved to
> be the best balance of all aspects and even exceled in a few. My best
> suggestion would be to not force it and just find your own sweet spot,
> they may not be for everyone and it may take time to finally click.
>
> - Dominic

So green pu-erhs work out better in yixings? Really? I somehow thought
that darker ones would work better in them. In my experience with
yixings it's too easy to overheat teas in them, and greener oolongs I've
had are not very tolerant of overheating.

How about "silver needle" puerhs - yixings or gaiwans? I only tried them
in regular glass pots so far, and they work great. I think of them as
lighter oolongs even though I've heard they're really green cakes puerhs.

-ak (rainy)