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If you use 85°C, the best way to do it is to do a standard infusion, ie at least 3 minutes in a thicker material vessel, rather than the gongfu style.
I agree with Manila that the bitter undertone is part of the taste profile of all Phoenix oolongs of the Shuixian family, ie all the dancongs. An old friend, a reputable wine master in Switzerland, who fell in love in my Phoenix oolongs said that the bitterness is the ‘backbone’ that holds up all the other taste characters. To me, it is not bitterness that is the common thread of the finest Phoenix oolongs, it is the special high mountain “peaty” and after-rain refreshing accents. They are a lot more obvious only when the tea is infused the gongfu way.There are many factors affecting the price of a Yixing pot. In a normal market, it is the materials and processing, the crafting expertise, the fame of the craftsperson, and the profit margins within the supply chain.
That said, however, the proportions in these factors have been quite distort in most cases. Lies, or exaggerations, are the strongest common thread in the distortion. The worst offenders are often found to be the retailers and second wholesalers. Common quality and ordinary artisans are labelled as great ones. Second wholesalers also encourage artisans to imitate the styles and signature seals of high ranking craftspersons to produce pots which pots are otherwise tens or hundreds of times lower in price.Another way to cheat the customer is to photograph a genuine one and deliver an imitation. It is most often happening in the internet market.What I think is the worst thing in the market, however, is the use of common clay to imitate Yixing clay. The use of various chemicals to colorize and change the surface finishing is commonplace. The products are good for decoration but not good for use. They are likely to be harmful to health. They are what some readers and customers show me what they have as Yixing pots. They are made in small villages and suburbs all over China. Initially it was a small shady industry for tourist gift shops and street vendors. Now the products are everywhere.I have not yet answered you how to distinguish a genuine Yixing pot, because that is a very, very big subject. Let me answer it in subsequent articles in the main site.One thing I need to stress is that a good genuine Yixing pot is a great tool and a great collection piece. The price does appreciate even after use (actually more after good use). The supply of good Yixing clay is lowering and the demand is rising.Phoenix oolong is definitely NOT the easiest tea to infuse! (I think it is actually one of the most difficult).
Thank you for following my instruction. I think I have not made a good video for the demo and stressed too much on the basics rather the finesse needed to attend to this delicate tea.The key to the whole process is actually controlling heat dissipation while heat loss.A few things that are key:Speed with which the water kettle turns around the rim of the gaiwanDistance between the gaiwan and the kettleSpeed of water flowThickness of the gaiwanDon’t give up trying. The reward is too amazing for not experiencing.One way to go around it is to use slightly less tealeaves and lower temperature. You wan’t get the whole taste and aroma profile, but it will at least be pleasantly close.If there is any instruction on how to prepare a cup of tea in the packing of the expensive Japanese green tea Gyokuro, it is often a few times the 1 to 100 tealeaves to water ratio, 20 to 60 seconds, and most definitely below 80°C (mostly 65!) In a serious demonstration or a Japanese tea ceremony for gyokuro, very often a 250 or 300 ml pot made from Yixing clay is used. I wouldn’t call that gongfu tea. I’d say good tea-making
I have not been able to find a better video to tell you about Hong Kong style milk tea, but here is one news report about a competition of it. Sorry all in Cantonese, but you can see some of the steps there:
Before there was air conditioner but after Man had invented work, people got sick when they had to endure the kind of sub-tropical climate such as that in southern China while keeping the economy turning. Getting sick because of the heat etc, was not only expensive, inconvenient but could also be lethal sometimes. That was why a lot of things were made to help people stay acceptably normal in the wet and hot climate. Most of them were herbal teas. Bamboo shell tea was one of them. Some said it has been around since antiquity, some said at least a few centuries. The main target of the herbal formula was to “drive away heat and moisture toxins”, as in the concept of traditional Chinese medicine. Some makers had their own formula, but most of the 6 or eight herbs are also employed in other popular folk formula, such as the “24 herb” formula that is still popular to this day.
In the past when disparity of the haves and have-nots was so dramatic, such more accessible life-savers had their important role. Strangely such things get popular again these days.Are you doing a table to document your findings? These are great findings for building up a comprehensive body of tea drinking knowledge
The original Tea Hong direction has been written aiming at general users who normally use a tea mug or tea pot for making tea. Basically the original idea of adjusting tea to water ratio means using more or less leaves, or a larger or smaller infusion vessel.
Tea infusion is a management of not only the water temperature, tea to water ratio, but also the heat behaviour within the infusion vessel; therefore the size, material, shape, and timing and manner of how water come into contact with tealeaves. The physical and chemical nature of the tealeaves also play key roles.Having said all these, basically, it seems to me that a 100 ml gaiwan is setting you up for the way to do it only in the gongfu way. Chawang is right. Smaller and thinner vessels facilitate short infusion approaches and not so good for longer ones. To do it the conventional way, you have to use a larger vessel. A larger vessel means relatively slower heat loss to enable you to control the other variables. A smaller one holds the total heat relatively shorter. It is a matter of physics: total surface area to volume.Generally, a 250 ml vessel with thick material, holding 2.5g tealeaves for 2~3 minutes should give you good result. If you use a 100 ml gaiwan, try DOUBLE the tealeaves but a quarter or one-fifth of the duration Amazing fun, isn’t it? I’ll talk a lot more about the variables of infusion in later TG articles.Yup, bringing the tools out is an issue. Keeping the water hot enough for making tea after some hours is another one. However, I do agree with ICE that doing that will yield better tasting tea, and do that when I think I can afford the loading and the water isn’t going to be kept in the flask for that long.
