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Hi Herendil,Basically any container that holds heat for a while can be used as a “teapot”. I have used ordinary mugs, water jugs, bowls, drinking glass, saucepans, and even those glass candle holders to steep tea in. They are far from ideal, but those that allow good convection and holds heat well can be surprising effective in rendering acceptable infusion quality.If I use a bowl, the one thing that I need in addition to it would be a lid, not an infusing bag. The one that you have posted the link of looks like one of those used in Hong Kong style diners for making Ceylon fanning grades in a tall tin teapot. It’s an understandable solution for the setup for a few reasons, one of which being that the tea bar tender can make use of the length of the cloth to squeeze out the strong infusion by twisting the bag.In a bowl, however, I think it kind of interferes with the much better convection pattern the inside of a bowl offers. I rather put the leaves directly into the bowl and strain them during pouring with a lid or a strainer. It’ll take some practice, but not that difficult. The most popular teaware in gongfu infusion style is a gaiwan — lid bowl — after all. If you use wholeleaf tea, that’s definitely the way to go.You wouldn’t know how poor I have been and the kind of bad situations that I had to make tea in. Deprivation of materials sometimes can be seen as a fortune: you are rich in opportunities to understand the nature of things and to improvise. And to understand who you are. Enjoy the moment.Happy holidays,Leo
This is a very good question. The processing of maocha under the sun is rather like that of white tea, during which some degree of “fermentation” takes place. Therefore, a maocha is not a green tea. You can read more about this in the related Tea Guardian page: https://www.teaguardian.com/nature_of_tea/Puer_cooked_or_raw.html
A sun dried green tea requires certain criteria for it to maintain the status of being a green tea: little or no fermentation.To do that, the producer has to work with a very hot sun and very thinly laid tealeaves. That said, I have not really witnessed this being done in any green tea production. All I have understood about sun-dried green tea is from the books and a tasting of it years ago. I do not belief any sun-drying for green tea is executed nowadays.The exact process with which the chemical nature of tealeaves changes from a maocha to a matured puer is yet to be studied by the scientist, but yet it is empirically understood that this would not happen to a green tea but to a maocha. Some studies exist though and I have it presented in this article: https://www.teaguardian.com/health/Health_Shengcha_Puer&ShuPuer.htmlSorry we have missed to respond to this. Yes you are right; there are some teashops doing that, but I cannot agree that it is a good method because some others are practicing it. Let me cite an example:
You know the thing that they call “bird nest” that the Chinese make tonic soups with. You know they are not cheap. They easily go for a couple of hundred USD for less than 40g. For as long as I could remember, there is a kind they called “blood nest” that is red in colour and that is even a lot more expensive than the rest. It has been publicized that the nest contain the blood from the parent birds and is mush more potent than the white ones. For many years it was almost a must for almost any herbal and b.n. specialty shop. An Indonesian producer received an interview earlier this year said that there is no such thing. All people in the trade put red colouring into the nests. Now only shops in tourist areas and those in worn out neighbourhoods carry blood nests.Not all those things that everyone else is doing is right.Puer “cakes” change more rapidly under humid conditions, but the kind of changes happen to them may not be as desirable as you think it would be.Thank you for the kind flattering. I only want the real TCM experts do more researches on the topic. The effectiveness of tea as a preventive and convenient measures against many ailments needs to be better understood for the welfare of everyone of us.
Putting a piece of paper between the tea and the container is a very traditional way to deal with the problem and is still practiced by many older respectful retailers. I am so delighted to read that you are doing the same.
Immediately after production, a green tea should be about 5~6% water. However, improper subsequent handling often cause higher moisture content at retail. Protecting your buy is a smart thing to do.In old style packing for Longjing, two layers of paper wrap each 0.6 kg of tea before putting in a tin lined crate. A same size pack of dehydrated gypsum is put in the centre of the crate.You are right that after refridgeration the tea changes a bit. One way I always do to minimize that and quite successfully is never to open even the first layer of protection after the tea is taken out from the fridge. I let it stand for one day or so to make sure the whole mass is return to room temperature to avoid moisture condensation on the surface of the leaves.Unless the tea is purchased immediately after production, almost all green tea producers, including tiny family operated ones, put their stock in the fridge before the ambient temperature turns 30. That is why some green tea in the market has been subjected to refrigeration without even the retailers themselves knowing it. Lower price green tea, such as meicha or gunpowder are exceptions.I think water definitely has a part in this, but I am suspecting the home freezer type of gradual temperature change may cause actual chemical changes in some of the less stable materials in the tealeaves. I am still lacking time to look into this aspect so I can not point a finger at anything.
Fine tea holds so many different substances in it to make it fine and so many of them are so delicate. They give us the subtlety in the experience and yet they can be gone so easily. So much the same in that many other things in life.I have not conducted tea classes in HK for a few years now, but I’ll keep you posted when I do them again. Thx for your support.
Olden green tea is a difficult tea to re-render well. The most it lost is not only the floral aroma but also the freshness in taste. If the condition is not so bad, most amino acids, the substance that give it the “umami” character, should still be there. To maximize what is left of the green tea, I increase the tea to water ratio and raise a very tiny bit the infusion temperature but reduce infuse time. The Yixing tea pot helps to reduce the bitterness of doing this and to give you a smoother texture. I also find that every single selection can be quite different in the degree of this modification and the condition of deterioration is also a variable factor.
As you have said, prevention of oldening is the best way to enjoy green tea. One way to do that is to store your finds well in a fridge in small batches, say 60~80 gram small packs, so you can always have a fresh batch at room temperature continuously throughout the year.Hope this help, and pls let me know how you have experiment with your stock.You are the first to ask for that in this forum, but certainly not the first if I count all other communication means. I can promise you that I’ll do that but I really don’t have a clue when I can fulfill this promise. Works are back-logged terribly. I’ll nevertheless put this in very high priority.
