Warning - be prepared for a silly question from a newbie - please
don't mock me.

After the discussion about giving scales to newbies I ended up
ordering a scale and a thermometer from Upton teas. Now I'm obsessing
about water quantity. The cup weight measure on the scale is
calibrated to a 6 oz cup. When I brew tea the tea leaves absorb water
so am I supposed to start out with 6 oz of water, or use more so that
I end up with 6 oz of tea?

TIA,
Janice

Janice > wrote:
>Warning - be prepared for a silly question from a newbie - please
>don't mock me.
>
>After the discussion about giving scales to newbies I ended up
>ordering a scale and a thermometer from Upton teas. Now I'm obsessing
>about water quantity. The cup weight measure on the scale is
>calibrated to a 6 oz cup. When I brew tea the tea leaves absorb water
>so am I supposed to start out with 6 oz of water, or use more so that
>I end up with 6 oz of tea?

It is assuming 6 fluid ounces of water to start out with. This SHOULD also
give you 6 fluid ounces of tea at the end after the leaves are removed.

To be honest, though, the difference is minimal.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Nov 30, 2:40 pm, Janice > wrote:
> Warning - be prepared for a silly question from a newbie - please
> don't mock me.
>
> After the discussion about giving scales to newbies I ended up
> ordering a scale and a thermometer from Upton teas. Now I'm obsessing
> about water quantity. The cup weight measure on the scale is
> calibrated to a 6 oz cup. When I brew tea the tea leaves absorb water
> so am I supposed to start out with 6 oz of water, or use more so that
> I end up with 6 oz of tea?
>
> TIA,
> Janice

You can vary the amount of tea, the amount of water, the temperature,
or the steeping time to achieve the optimum brew.

Scales and thermometers come into play when the tea heads are doing
comparative tastings and want to share their results via
correspondance.

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

> Janice > wrote:
> >Warning - be prepared for a silly question from a newbie - please
> >don't mock me.
> >
> >After the discussion about giving scales to newbies I ended up
> >ordering a scale and a thermometer from Upton teas. Now I'm obsessing
> >about water quantity. The cup weight measure on the scale is
> >calibrated to a 6 oz cup. When I brew tea the tea leaves absorb water
> >so am I supposed to start out with 6 oz of water, or use more so that
> >I end up with 6 oz of tea?
>
> It is assuming 6 fluid ounces of water to start out with. This SHOULD also
> give you 6 fluid ounces of tea at the end after the leaves are removed.
>
> To be honest, though, the difference is minimal.

Yes, but it becomes more than minimal when you use lots of leaf, as in
gongfu.

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

On Dec 1, 3:40 am, Janice > wrote:
> Warning - be prepared for a silly question from a newbie - please
> don't mock me.
>
> After the discussion about giving scales to newbies I ended up
> ordering a scale and a thermometer from Upton teas. Now I'm obsessing
> about water quantity. The cup weight measure on the scale is
> calibrated to a 6 oz cup. When I brew tea the tea leaves absorb water
> so am I supposed to start out with 6 oz of water, or use more so that
> I end up with 6 oz of tea?
>
> TIA,
> Janice

Honestly, I think it is not something you should worry about. I'd say
just whatever seems to taste better for you -- whether that means 6oz
of water to start or ending up at 6oz of water. I will also suggest
to you to pay attention to approximately how much leaves that is, and
then start playing with the amount of leaves/water until you hit
something that you find good/better. I've seen some pretty wacko
recommendations about brewing parameters for all sorts of tea (such as
5g of raw puerh for 5 minutes in a cup) that will end up with some
seriously nasty tasting tea, so don't pay too much attention to these
things and treat them as mere suggestions rather than the cardinal
rule.

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

On Dec 3, 12:59 am, MarshalN > wrote:
> Honestly, I think it is not something you should worry about. I'd say
> just whatever seems to taste better for you -- whether that means 6oz
> of water to start or ending up at 6oz of water. I will also suggest
> to you to pay attention to approximately how much leaves that is, and
> then start playing with the amount of leaves/water until you hit
> something that you find good/better. I've seen some pretty wacko
> recommendations about brewing parameters for all sorts of tea (such as
> 5g of raw puerh for 5 minutes in a cup) that will end up with some
> seriously nasty tasting tea, so don't pay too much attention to these
> things and treat them as mere suggestions rather than the cardinal
> rule.
>
> MarshalNhttp://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

I'll follow up on MarshalN's wisdom with what I tell people in my tea
classes: "If you brew using the wrong kind of water at the wrong
temperature, with the wrong amount of tea, for the wrong time and you
like what you get at the end, you brewed it EXACTLY right."

That said, what I sometimes do with a new tea is control for
everything but time (measure some known amount of tea, water, and
temperature), then pour out a tiny sample cup of liquor every 30
seconds or so--or shorter intervals if it's a fancy tea. That way I
get a sense of how it performs over time. Once I have a time I like,
I keep that constant and fiddle with one of the other factors.

You can get tea drunk doing this, but you end up really knowing how to
get the flavors you want out of a tea.

(BTW: I accidentally steeped a cooked/black/shu puer for 4 days
once...still drinkable! Wouldn't do it with a raw though...<shudder>)

I went through a serious stage of obsessing about every tea factor. If
you are at all like me, though, that process is for your benefit only.
In other words, it isn't so much the amounts you use as it is the
consistency with which you do it. The consistency helps you learn how
to brew tea. If you brew 6oz of water with 6g of leaves every time
then you will get a sense for what that is like. If you use 6.2 oz. of
water with 6g of leaves every time, then you will get a sense of what
that is like. Eventually, you may decide that 6.2oz tastes better than
6oz, or that 5g of leaves is all you need to make a good cup of tea
instead of 7g. At some point, you will likely become familiar with
what it takes to brew a good cup of tea without using precise
measuring devices.

Having said that, I use a very small (less than 6oz) yixing pot and
put as much water as it will let me. I do weigh out the amount of
leaves I use, but don't time my brewings much anymore. When I brew the
first brew, I get slightly more tea than when I brew my fifth brew,
because there is less room for water once the leaves expand. So the
amount of water I use changes as I brew and there is nothing I can do
about it due to the size limitations of my pot. I personally feel that
using too much water is worse than using too little because I'm not so
crazy about weak tea.

And if you are using a scale to weigh your tea, you will likely be
mocked. I know I am, though I enjoy that as part of my tea routine in
the morning (not the mocking, the tea weighing).

cha bing