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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.
I once spent some time with a Moroccan aristocrat talking about their style of mint tea. The traditional has been there because of a few important elements: first and foremost being tea, mint and sugar as an important element for their overly normal plain and unbalanced diet: bread. Sugar and tea are still two major commodities in that country today. The other reason, the princely young man told me, has been the occasion of making tea round the big brass boiler pot when he has the warmest memories of his father. I think he meant its a time for the family to get together.
To me, the tea is exceedingly sweet, almost syrupy, and there is not much importance for the quality of the tea, as long as it is there and quite green.
