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Drinking so much Yerba Mate, kilos and kilos of it. I pour almost an 3/4s a gourd into my ceremic thing. I use a smoke dried variety, it tastes like an ash tray. It makes me feel like I have a smoking habit but not quite. I do the Brazillian cuts but I would switch to La Rubia (from I think Uruguay?), but it's more expensive and shipping takes longer
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Aug 19, 2020 08:54
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man, you know there's a lot of humidity outside when the RH in your pumidor goes up the moment you open it to grab a cake
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Aug 19, 2020 10:59
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Trying to expand into teas. I love brewing coffee and all of the different tedious ways I can do it, so I'm very open to any methods of preparation or serving. I'm also pretty open to anything in terms of flavor profiles. Right now I have a bunch of tea bags I don't really like, and a tin of Harney & Sons Mutan White that I got as a gift with this infuser. I like the white tea a lot. I've also got some cast-iron tea pot with a mesh strainer in it that I bought locally as part of a set. I've never used it based on the assumption it's supposed to be used to make a larger quantity of tea, and I'm mostly just doing a couple brews with the infuser. I guess these are my questions: Besides the list in the OP are there any online vendors I can check out, and do you recommend anything specific? I'm happy to try out a wide variety to get an idea of what I enjoy most. Are there any baseline weight ratios I should be starting from, or will that vary depending on the type of tea? Am I wrong in assuming tea is a little more forgiving than coffee in terms of ratios? Any other brewing/serving methods I can try out? I read a little bit about gongfu and it seems up my alley. As long as it's not a huge expense or a gimmick I'm interested. Do I need to look into anything specific for storage, or will whatever starting stuff I get likely come in the appropriate containers? Looking forward to boiling more leaves.
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Aug 24, 2020 04:45
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Gongfu brewing can be done very cheaply or very (very) expensively. It depends on how fancy you want to be and how many people you plan to serve. I brew Gongfu style for myself every couple of days and occasionally for one other person. The only things I would call critical are the gaiwan, a gongdaobei (a pitcher) and a strainer. Secondary would be a serving tray/reservoir to dump out the rinse, but that's not strictly necessary - you could just dump it in the sink if you want, or into a bowl. Here's my setup: A bamboo serving tray. This one comes with a pair of tongs, a scoop, and a microfiber tea cloth. A double-walled glass pitcher. In Gongfu serving, a clear glass pitcher is preferred so you can show the color of the liquor off to your guests. This one works great, pours nicely, and the double-wall keeps your hands cool. A gaiwan - I won't link a specific one because there are a billion of them available in different styles and it really comes down to personal taste. You can get really geeky about weight balances and designs and such, but truthfully any of them will work. The most important thing is that the lid sits securely and cleanly in the gaiwan. It should be able to settle into it without rattling around. You can get a clear glass one or a plain white porcelain one for around $10-12 or you can go higher end and get fancy ones with beautiful glaze like this one that I've got. It's my most prized piece of teaware and I love it. But it's not at all necessary. These strainers fit perfectly into the pitcher linked above. The smaller one sits better in that, the bigger one will fit in most mugs and cups. If you go cheap on the gaiwan you could get a full setup for roughly 60-70 dollars that will serve you well.
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Aug 24, 2020 06:04
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The Postman posted:Trying to expand into teas. I love brewing coffee and all of the different tedious ways I can do it, so I'm very open to any methods of preparation or serving. I'm also pretty open to anything in terms of flavor profiles. For Tea I'd just buy it in bulk off Amazon. Black Tea is fine. Tea can get really bitter if you you let the water boil (I don't find coffee hard to make at all, the stronger the better, it doesn't get that real dry bitterness that happens to tea, especially green). When I made tea, I would put a lot of effort into Chai every morning. I made it in a big iron dutch oven. Poured in lots of Black Tea, from Denver Tea Company because it was I think 2 lbs and good enough. I mixed in Rooibos so it was like a Red/Black Chai. Along with that, Green Cardimom, peppercorn, cinnamon stick, fennel, ginger. I used dried Stevia to make it sweet, with heavy cream. Never actually got into Cloves. It was such a nice ritual in winter time. I know I didn't answer your question, but just sharing how I used to and will make tea when winter rolls around. Edit: I looked up my tea, it's not Denver Tea Company, it was Denver Spice -> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009UGFH3U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 excellent bird guy fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Aug 24, 2020 |
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Aug 24, 2020 10:59
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Heath posted:Gongfu brewing can be done very cheaply or very (very) expensively. It depends on how fancy you want to be and how many people you plan to serve. I brew Gongfu style for myself every couple of days and occasionally for one other person. The only things I would call critical are the gaiwan, a gongdaobei (a pitcher) and a strainer. Secondary would be a serving tray/reservoir to dump out the rinse, but that's not strictly necessary - you could just dump it in the sink if you want, or into a bowl. If you want to keep it super simple, all you really need are two glasses/cups and a strainer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-xFkYy1AI A gaiwan is really nice for it though and lets you skip the strainer for most quality tea
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Aug 24, 2020 11:40
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Awesome! Thank you for the replies so far. Heath posted:Gongfu brewing can be done very cheaply or very (very) expensively. It depends on how fancy you want to be and how many people you plan to serve. I brew Gongfu style for myself every couple of days and occasionally for one other person. The only things I would call critical are the gaiwan, a gongdaobei (a pitcher) and a strainer. Secondary would be a serving tray/reservoir to dump out the rinse, but that's not strictly necessary - you could just dump it in the sink if you want, or into a bowl. I like that this is pretty accessible to get started but leaves room to expand if I want. Is the actual brewing ratio/temp/duration going to be about the same as what's listed on the tea? Or should I be looking into brewing information specific to Gongfu style? Is there a specific type of tea that really shines through this method, or is it just hot water on leaves at the end of the day no matter how I do it? Thanks for the info and links, by the way! excellent bird guy posted:For Tea I'd just buy it in bulk off Amazon. Black Tea is fine. Tea can get really bitter if you you let the water boil (I don't find coffee hard to make at all, the stronger the better, it doesn't get that real dry bitterness that happens to tea, especially green). This sounds lovely! I might stray away from introducing spices and stuff right off the bat just to get a grasp on the basic tea types/flavors and build from there. I imagine by the time it starts cooling down I'll be ready to give that a try (and my girlfriend loves Chai, so even if it's not my thing I'll have someone to make it for). Thank you!
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Aug 24, 2020 12:53
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The Postman posted:Trying to expand into teas. I love brewing coffee and all of the different tedious ways I can do it, so I'm very open to any methods of preparation or serving. I'm also pretty open to anything in terms of flavor profiles. I've found that water temp also plays a huge role in how the finished product tastes. For black teas I tend to prefer water just off the boil, there's very few things I like less than black tea brewed with the hot water spout that comes out at 190, at the same time there are green teas that taste glorious at that temp. Essentially don't be afraid to try different water temperatures for your teas and see what you like.
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Aug 24, 2020 17:50
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all gongfu really is higher leaf-to-water ratio and less steep time than standard western brewing. you don't need $60 to do that - you just need a way to load up leaves and get them in and out of water quickly. you can "gongfu" kind of crappily but just fine with a basket mesh strainer dunked in and out of a cup.The Postman posted:I like that this is pretty accessible to get started but leaves room to expand if I want. Is the actual brewing ratio/temp/duration going to be about the same as what's listed on the tea? Or should I be looking into brewing information specific to Gongfu style? Is there a specific type of tea that really shines through this method, or is it just hot water on leaves at the end of the day no matter how I do it? Thanks for the info and links, by the way! you should think of gongfu like a cooking method: some poo poo tastes great with it, some you cook a different way. a lot of western-tastes tea like indian teas and small leaf stuff do terrible gongfu. any random tea you can find in america is probably not a gongfu candidate: the majority of the poo poo i gongfu i get shipped from china. larger leaf material that resteeps well works good, like puerh, some oolongs, i enjoy dian hong gongfu quite a lot. imo most teas that gongfu well can western brew fine. not really vice versa. i've only ever seen gongfu "directions" from online vendors, but i usually start with boiling water and 1g to 15ml as a leaf to water ratio, steeping for 5 seconds and +5 sec every resteep. water temperature doesn't really change here. cooler for greens, hotter for black. that being said, i gongfu everything from shou to oolongs to green teas at boiling temperatures and don't care and have satisfying cups. once you know the rules you can start breaking them to your preference.
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Aug 24, 2020 18:24
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The Postman posted:Awesome! Thank you for the replies so far. The main difference with gongfu brewing is the ratio of leaf to water, namely that if you're brewing in a gaiwan, you're going to be using a lot more leaf to a lot less water (as compared to a pot), and subsequently, brew times are much shorter. I usually eyeball my tea (though I just bought a gram scale to actually weigh it and have been experimenting with that) and do one heaping scoop to as much water as it takes to fill up to about where the lid sits on the gaiwan. I was planning to have a session this morning anyway, so I recorded my process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbCW4EXBRFA I probably could have used more leaf for this brew, but it turned out pretty good regardless. Next time I have it I will probably use significantly more leaf, but I've only got a small sample of Big Red Robe and it's quite expensive so I went conservative with it. As I said in the video, if I'm having an oolong or especially a Pu'erh, I will use a gaiwan. I really love Pu'erhs served gongfu style because they tend to extract fast and hard and dark, so you get a super rich tea brew. Larger leaf teas tend to do better in gaiwans too, since you're not pouring off as much - smaller and broken leaves will extract faster and more aggressively than larger leaves, which is why you try to get rid of the smallest bits in the first rinse so they don't muck up the tea. Your rolled oolongs like Tie Guan Yin are especially good for it. I've never had much luck with greens in gongfu, at least not the Japanese greens that I like. They're too temperamental about the water ratio and temp and brew times and such, and really need a big wide kyusu to get the most out of them. As for temperatures, go with what's recommended on the tin and adjust brew times accordingly. In general, the temperature range determines what is extracted from the tea and how fast it is extracted - my non-chemist understanding is that higher temperatures speed up chemical processes and the breakdown of the compounds in the tea, and thus, higher temperatures equal faster extraction. When gongfu brewing, the closer to boiling I am, the shorter the brew time. Higher temperatures tend to extract the more bitter notes in tea, too, so if you're into the bitterness you may go a little higher and shorter and if you're trying for something more mild you can go lower and longer. Gongfu brewing times are a difference of seconds rather than minutes, though, so experiment until you find out what you like. Initial brews should be shorter, of course, because there's more in the tea to extract and you don't want to overextract it in order to save some flavor for later brews. A rinse should be 5-10 seconds (I gave my BRR 10 seconds, which was honestly too long - some people rinse for about 2 seconds and immediately dump it.) First brew should be 5-15 depending on what you're drinking and how much it has opened up, and as a general rule each subsequent brew should add 5 seconds. I find by the time I'm hitting 25-30 second brews that the tea is running out of steam, and by then I will usually do a final brew that's as long as 2 minutes just to see what I can get out of it.
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Aug 24, 2020 20:21
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Thank you for that post and video, it was really informative.
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Aug 24, 2020 20:27
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Repaired Radio posted:you can "gongfu" kind of crappily but just fine with a basket mesh strainer dunked in and out of a cup. I would arguably guess that gongfuing with a mesh basket might be even better than a gaiwan, just because of how much quicker you can get the leaves out of the water. makes for a lot more control over steep times
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Aug 24, 2020 21:00
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catechins and tannins, which give astringency and bitterness to tea, are very temperature-sensitive: they mostly stay in the leaf below 75C and extract very quickly above 85C. the compounds responsible for its aroma follow similar, but less dramatic curves. if you want to emphasize sweet or savory flavors in a tea, brew it cooler and for longer, with a higher ratio of leaf to water, but if you go too far the result tends to be insipid for lack of aroma (this is a big uncanny-valley problem for people who grew up on chinese teas when they try the japanese stuff, some of which is infused with basically lukewarm water). if you want a refreshing, astringent brew, use hotter water with a shorter infusion time. the only hard rule is that you have to find your own balance in brewing parameters. the numbers printed on the bag can often be a good starting point, but they aren't the only way to brew good tea, and statistically they're not going to be your favorite way of brewing. don't let insufferable nerds like me make you stop enjoying something you like.
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Aug 24, 2020 21:03
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Right, when I first started brewing gyokuro I went by the bag instructions and brewed it at roughly 170, and while it was good, it didn't even compare to it brewed at 120, much cooler. It was a completely different taste experience. Do some research, there's a lot of tea talk out there.
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Aug 24, 2020 21:10
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Carillon posted:I've found that water temp also plays a huge role in how the finished product tastes. For black teas I tend to prefer water just off the boil, there's very few things I like less than black tea brewed with the hot water spout that comes out at 190, at the same time there are green teas that taste glorious at that temp. Essentially don't be afraid to try different water temperatures for your teas and see what you like. I have an adjustable electric kettle so I should have plenty of fun changing things by single degrees for the hell of it. Repaired Radio posted:you should think of gongfu like a cooking method: some poo poo tastes great with it, some you cook a different way. Both of these things make a lot of sense to me and put some of the process in perspective. Thanks! Heath posted:I was planning to have a session this morning anyway, so I recorded my process: drat thank you for the thorough explanations and video to boot! I love the way the entire process looks. I think I'll piece together an inexpensive Gongfu setup with some of your recommendations and then pick out a white/black/green/oolong and get started! I did a quick search of Pu'er tea and it seems interesting. Should I hold off on that until I'm a little more familiar with the basics?
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Aug 24, 2020 21:12
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Pu'erh vending is specialist work--it's not necessarily something you need to have a more "refined" taste for or whatever, but it can be pretty expensive and the best places to buy don't necessarily have a good stock of other types of tea.
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Aug 24, 2020 21:21
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Pu'erh is also a bit volatile due to how it's made, so you can get good Pu'erhs and you can get very bad Pu'erhs. If you have the opportunity to get a sample of something I'd try that before buying a cake. Personally I'd say for your first few sessions get something you know you like and brew it gongfu style to see how different it is.
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Aug 24, 2020 21:25
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Also keep in mind that growing region and style often matter a lot more than the "color" of a tea--a chinese "red" tea from Fujian and an indian "black" tea from Nilgiri are the same color, but completely unalike each other. chinese greens and japanese greens are also basically aliens, because of the huge difference between roasted/steamed kill-green. Three slightly off the beaten path suggestions: Japanese senchas are largely built around the unique characteristics of the Japanese tea-steaming machine, and the "deep-steamed" fukamushi senchas show off the technique's strengths (vivid flavor, beautiful liquor, muted bitterness and natural umami) and weaknesses (powdery/broken leaves, weak aroma, single/double infusions only). Oolongs cover a huge range of tastes, but one that always interests people at tastings is the "charcoal" style dark roast popular in Hong Kong. Many teas advertise "natural sweetness" but this stuff actually delivers it. Chinese black teas are "red" in Mandarin, which also serves as a natural distinction between the British/Indian style of very earthy, bitter, robust teas designed to stand up to milk, and the sweeter more floral Chinese style that is absolutely drinkable without it. "Golden Monkey", which has a bit of a chocolatey finish to it, is a perpetual crowd-pleaser.
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Aug 24, 2020 21:36
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Yunnan Sourcing has a pretty wide selection and I like that they will send me small samples of rather high quality pu-erh even though that is not what I usually order from them. My guess is that they want to get more people into it (higher profit margin?), but in any case I enjoy the variety.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:20
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The Postman posted:I think I'll piece together an inexpensive Gongfu setup with some of your recommendations and then pick out a white/black/green/oolong and get started! I did a quick search of Pu'er tea and it seems interesting. Should I hold off on that until I'm a little more familiar with the basics? There are some great puerhs out there and also a whole lot of crap and also a whole lot of outright scams especially when it comes to aged ones. I recommend trying a bunch of places and finding a vendor you trust to make quality selections regardless of what kind of tea you're drinking but it's even more important for puerh. I don't drink too much puerh but for my taste, I continue to recommend Stephane at Teamasters as just such a reliable vendor. He's actually branched out into regularly stocking puerh the past few years, usually a combo of very reasonably priced young cakes and outrageously expensive aged stuff. The best puerh I've ever had was a sample from him actually, but must've been close to 10 years ago now and it's long gone from his shop. I picked up one of the young cakes he was stocking last year but haven't broken into it yet. Maybe I'll do that in the next couple days and report back whether it was a good buy or not. For the teas I usually drink (oolongs) I've always found his selections to be top notch for the price point, regardless of whether it was the cheap stuff or the top shelf. I haven't placed an order since the rona hit though, and he's located in Taiwan, so not sure if there's any shipping issues etc.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqeZYmXpno Recording my session was fun so I did it again to show off my Pu'erh. Here's a second steeping:  It's much darker than the first, so much so that you can't see the light through it. Delicious as hell.
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Aug 25, 2020 19:29
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That’s such a pretty color too. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.
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Aug 25, 2020 20:44
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This is the tea I recommend to people who are coffee drinkers and not tea drinkers, but who are interested in tea.
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Aug 25, 2020 22:22
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The description of that one sounds interesting. I typically stray away from medium/dark roasts with my coffees and go for light roasts with lots of bright, fruity notes but maybe I'll find I trend the opposite way with teas! Very excited for everything to get here and post my impressions with each flavor and the process. Thanks again to everyone for all of the help.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:25
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You can get plenty of light and fruity teas, too. There's a whole big world of teas out there. I think I'm going to do some gyokuro tomorrow.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:38
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Heath posted:You can get plenty of light and fruity teas, too. There's a whole big world of teas out there. I think I'm going to do some gyokuro tomorrow. I did that thing I said I would do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8uyUMA7pe0 Apologies for being so quiet, I am recording on my phone so it's hard to gauge how much volume it's actually picking up. Also I didn't intend this to be as long as it is, but if you want to hear me ramble about a tea I like, you can do that! I might go make a PMF thread for my tea videos so I'm not dominating this thread with my own content, I just like talking about tea and I think showing it is better than just writing about it. edit: I made a thread over there. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3938170 Heath fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 21:08
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Had no idea PMF was a thing but I appreciate the videos and writeups so I'll keep coming back for more.
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Aug 26, 2020 22:44
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I did a matcha video this morning and ended up spending 4 minutes brewing it and 13 minutes talking about the history of matcha so I will do a fresh one tomorrow and split those topics up
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Aug 28, 2020 00:45
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Here's me talking about matcha a whole lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_xiD-5-rRo
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Aug 28, 2020 23:27
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I bought a packet of Tua Chua Lai Chau and brewed it for just over 2 minutes as stated on the packet and it was quite bitter. Super tasty but too bitter to enjoy fully. Does anyone else have any experience with this tea and have any advice?
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Aug 31, 2020 20:45
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How hot's the water you're using?
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Aug 31, 2020 21:04
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Around 85 celcius. That's probably too hot so I'm going for 75 tomorrow and see what happens.
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Aug 31, 2020 21:12
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75 seems pretty excessive for most greens, i'd try upping the leaf-to-water ratio and doing shorter infusions first
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Aug 31, 2020 21:39
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Heath posted:Here's me talking about matcha a whole lot Also this video of yours was super interesting and informative. Bit like a friend just chatting about something they enjoy.
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Aug 31, 2020 21:45
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Misty Fog posted:Around 85 celcius. That's probably too hot so I'm going for 75 tomorrow and see what happens. Yeah, try dropping the temperature some and see if it turns out differently. With greens especially the bitterness tends to come out more above 75. 70-75 should be a good sweet spot for most greens, although I've never had that particular tea, so it will be to your benefit to experiment with it. Lowering the temp should reduce the bitterness quite a bit, but I would also try cutting the steep time down to 1:15-1:30 and see whether it makes a difference. Misty Fog posted:Also this video of yours was super interesting and informative. Bit like a friend just chatting about something they enjoy. Thank you! I have never done any video content before and I'm just recording stuff on my phone because I feel like pictures don't really do it justice. You kind of need to see the light moving through the tea to get a real sense of color. Heath fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 22:45
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Heath posted:Yeah, try dropping the temperature some and see if it turns out differently. With greens especially the bitterness tends to come out more above 75. 70-75 should be a good sweet spot for most greens, although I've never had that particular tea, so it will be to your benefit to experiment with it. Lowering the temp should reduce the bitterness quite a bit, but I would also try cutting the steep time down to 1:15-1:30 and see whether it makes a difference. Alright ill try that tomorrow and report back! And for sure, videos put most drinks in a much better light than a picture ever could.
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Sep 1, 2020 00:39
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Teavivre is have a ninth anniversary sale. Anyone pick something up? I blew 49 usd on some Black Dragon Balls and oolong. Fengqing Dragon Pearl black tea is so good. Did they stop giving out samples? I didn't even get that option. If they locked it behind some 'spend XXX amount for samples' I will be sad. Hopefully I'll see this tea before the end of the year.
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Sep 1, 2020 03:56
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I've had this strange relationship to tea the last year or so. When I first got into chinese teas, most of the tea I drank was amazing. Everything seemed delicious, and when I made something I didn't like it was usually due to obvious steeping errors. But after the initial highs of drinking great tea, I've had fewer of these experiences. A lot of the tea have seemed to lack taste, seem sort of bland etc. At the same time, I'm fairly certain that I've been drinking pricier and better tea in the same period. Revisiting the stuff i thought was delicious have also been dissappointing. There are several possibilities: 1. my tea have decreased in quality, 2. my steeping technique has deteriorated, 3. my expectations to the tea have increased, 4. my tastebuds have gone to poo poo haha It's not that all the tea I've been drinking has been bland, but the magic seemed to dissappear a bit after the initial highs. That said I've had some truly excellent tea experiences lately (great dancong, superb yancha, super fruity yabao), so it might be coming back. I've sort of gone back to basics experimenting with leaf ratios in a gaiwan, and the tea has been more consistant and better. As for the alternatives I've listed earlier, I assume it's been mostly 3, with hints of bad steeping parameters. Has anyone experienced something similar? Tonight I'm going to drink a really nice 2002 shou that I finally bought some more of. Autumn calls for puerh
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Sep 1, 2020 09:52
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Attempt 2: So much nicer, brewed at 70 celcius for 1 minute 30. Now it has this beautiful golden colour and no bitterness at all. I like it slightly stronger than this though so next time will brew it for slightly longer and see. https://imgur.com/a/r85Sa9h Misty Fog fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 15:53
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Tea-adjacent question: I drink a lot of mugicha, and usually just make it with the barley bags you throw in your pitcher. I have been tossing these bags into my compost when I refill my pitcher, the bags themselves feel like they're made of the same kind of paper you'd see in brown coffee filters. Anyone know what this material is? Wondering if I've screwed up and will be fishing out a bunch of uncomposted material come spring.
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Sep 1, 2020 18:42
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