I’ll admit I’ve got some holes in my how-to.
Currently I only own two gaiwans (third one’s lid took a nose dive off a table, lives on as a cup) – one is 100ml filled to rim and the other is about 120ml filled the same way. The former is bell shaped and fairly thin, the latter bowl shaped and relatively thicker. I’ve done a little gongfu style stuff recently for a deep brown oolong (more experimentation required), but pretty generally I just pre-heat it, put the right about of leaves in (1g to 100ml of water or proportions there of) and the leaves sit until I’m done with them. The bowl one usually gets used for darker teas because it holds heat a bit longer, but the tiny button on it leaves a bit to be desired. On the whole, green teas do best in my experience – probably because the heat drop doesn’t effect them so much.
So if I’m following along, I should invest in a larger gaiwan / cha chung, like this one for example: https://www.jkteashop.com/lucky-vine-flower-fine-porcelain-big-gaiwan-250cc-p-798.html
And then I’d leave my smaller ones for gongfu sessions?
That is to say, my standard approach would probably be better served with something the size of the above vs the ones I have now, which I should make better use of in gongfu sessions.
Thanks,
M.
