Thread: Tea anyone ??!!

It has been a relaxing morning drinking Some Spring Harvest Laoshan Green from Verdant Teas. I have been following the brewing directions provided by Verdant and steep for 30 seconds. This led me to cut steeping time for all the teas I drink.

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

It has been a relaxing morning drinking Some Spring Harvest Laoshan Green from Verdant Teas. I have been following the brewing directions provided by Verdant and steep for 30 seconds. This led me to cut steeping time for all the teas I drink.

https://www.facebook.com/verdanttea?fref=nf

There are some great odds and ends of info here.

The post man arrived today and left me a small tin of matcha and a new whisk for preparing it. Here's what I got.



I read some steps in making it and watched a few vids on how its done. The exact measurements are a little vague as most suggest a number of scoops with a specific spoon. I read one set of instructions that suggested 4g. The next time I'll try 4g and 60ml of water. But I made one cup today.




WOW. This is green tea on steroids. Makes perfect sense considering what it is. I suppose the only thing that was surprising to me was the mouth feel. There is a chalky/grittiness I wasn't prepared for. But that beautiful, vegetal, sweat pea flavor is there in full force. My ratios may have been slightly off and I may have used a bit too much. I'll be more meticulous the next go around.

Wow, good first attempt!

That cup will be too tall and narrow for whisking matcha properly, though. Try using a fairly steep sided bowl instead. Getting a proper whisking technique in the right amount of space will get rid of the grittiness and clumps. Also, I recommend sifting the matcha into your bowl (use a fine tea strainer or something) as it'll be less likely to clump when you add water.

I think 2 chashaku equals roughly 1 teaspoon, so try that. 60 ml sounds good -- I generally measure mine by eye these days. In my personal opinion it's better to have a little less water than too much.

Originally Posted by PigHog

Wow, good first attempt!

That cup will be too tall and narrow for whisking matcha properly, though. Try using a fairly steep sided bowl instead. Getting a proper whisking technique in the right amount of space will get rid of the grittiness and clumps. Also, I recommend sifting the matcha into your bowl (use a fine tea strainer or something) as it'll be less likely to clump when you add water.

I think 2 chashaku equals roughly 1 teaspoon, so try that. 60 ml sounds good -- I generally measure mine by eye these days. In my personal opinion it's better to have a little less water than too much.

I did whisk it in a slightly larger vessel and then poured it into the cup. Either way, I didn't have the right vessel to whisk it in. I think I have something that will work better for next time. I used what one site suggested, a heaping teaspoon of the tea. Perhaps just a teaspoon is a better ratio. I more or less tried to duplicate this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUfnS4IFS0k

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Toucha today.

I love rice flavor pu erh, there are some really nice ones out there. Tuo cha actually means "dome tea", referring to the dome shape of the tea cake. Anyways, looks delish!

That's a good video. Just keep practicing!

Pick yourself up an inexpensive chawan. There are some nice, lower priced, mass produced Mino yaki bowls on yuuki-cha.
In fact, the bizen yaki chawan are very reasonably priced, too.

There are also a couple of good eBay sellers with some inexpensive vintage and new artisan chawan. Japanese.artisan and katsuragi_japan come to mind.

Originally Posted by PigHog

That's a good video. Just keep practicing!

Pick yourself up an inexpensive chawan. There are some nice, lower priced, mass produced Mino yaki bowls on yuuki-cha.
In fact, the bizen yaki chawan are very reasonably priced, too.

There are also a couple of good eBay sellers with some inexpensive vintage and new artisan chawan. Japanese.artisan and katsuragi_japan come to mind.

Ill have a look over the weekend for one. That's a good tip.

I was never a Smashing Pumkins fan but I found that Billy Corgan opened a tea shop in my neck of the woods.

Madame ZuZu's Tea Shop and Art Studio

At work with some yamamotoyama koukyū bagged sencha: