I bought a 4-ounce tin of this tea, and could use some advice on
preparation - it was expensive enough that I don't want to waste any
more than I have already.

Here's what I've tried already:

First, I ran some experiments on how long it took to make 180 F water,
the recommended water temperature.

I have a stainless steel mug that holds two cups.

I have a stainless steel mesh tea ball that is too big to fit the
opening of my mug. Blah.

I have one of those mostly-solid-with-little-holes tea balls that you
find at the grocer's, and that are excruciatingly difficult to unscrew
without traction gloves. I ended up trying to use this one, because it
fits into my mug.

With the tea ball, I added one wide teaspoon (a soup spoon, really),
slightly less than a level spoonful, to the ball, and infused for
about five minutes. The tea had not much flavor or aroma, so I chalked
it up to using half the amount of tea needed. Did I use too little
tea?

Next, I tried two slightly less than level spoons full to the tea
ball, and infused for about five minutes. The flavor was a bit
stronger, the aroma was up. The tea tasted a bit "vegetably" to me -
maybe a light asparagus-like flavor. Is this normal? Or did I use too
much tea?

I opened the two-spoons tea ball, and the leaves were packed into the
shape of the ball, so I figured this is probably really bad for proper
infusion, and that maybe I just needed to infuse the leaves loose in
the cup, for the second infusion. I did this, and noticed no change in
flavor or aroma, and the leaves really took up a lot of space in the
bottom of the mug, after infusing...

So maybe I'm just doing this all wrong.

To recap, I'm using good filtered water at 180 F. I'm warming the mug
before adding tea or water. One spoon seems a bit weak, two spoons
seems a bit much, and the tea doesn't seem to have the "best tea I've
ever tasted" quality as stated by John Harney. At $70 USD for four
ounces, I expected a bit more.

To be fair, I am used to black teas like Harney's Darjeeling Highlands
blend and their Irish Breakfast Assam blend, so maybe my taste buds
aren't quite comfortable with the Top Ti Quan Yin. This is also my
first experience with any Oolong tea.

Any advice to help me explore and get the best experience from this
Oolong?


Thanks a bunch,
Mark Edwards