Thread: Tea anyone ??!!

Originally Posted by Olav Vittfarne

Thank you very much.

I'll get my act together and post some pics of some newly bought ruskie stuff soon.

That would be great.....Sure wish we had Bella around still.He had great kit to show. RIP.

Wuyi Oolong this afternoon as that I'm going to drink while I read by the fire.

TOTD
Sunday breakfast. Georgian tea in a podstakannik. Little more fruity than black ceylon tea.
Got that Russian tea caddy from a Swedish auction site.

Originally Posted by Olav Vittfarne

TOTD
Sunday breakfast. Georgian tea in a podstakannik. Little more fruity than black ceylon tea.
Got that Russian tea caddy from a Swedish auction site.

Yesssss !!!!!! That looks really awesome Olav , Thanks for that.

Tea is so much more than brown liquid in a cup.The accoutrements ,the foods that go with....it's the tea experience that's so special and the tea world has a lot to offer if you look for it. Cheers!!

Well said!

This year's biluochun (碧螺春) at West Mountain Island (西山岛) 1)pre-roast (fresh-picked leaves) 2)during the roast and 3)as a finished product
He's using a bowl heated by a propane flame and continually moves the leaves in it for 45 minutes (starts with gloves and takes them off partway into the process as the leaves don't convey so much of the heat once they dry out a bit).
There are three steps to this 45 minute process:
1) 杀青 killing the color: he flips the leaves repeatedly to turn them from fresh green to a sort of roasted green
2) 揉捻 kneading and twirling: this rolls the leaves; biluochun dry consists of very tightly twisted leaves which, when water is added, open to resume their normal shape)
3) 炒干 "frying" the leaves dry (frying in this sense not that there is oil; there isn't. but rather that he's using a wok-like instrument to directly convey the heat)

Originally Posted by ffourteen

This year's biluochun (碧螺春) at West Mountain Island (西山岛) 1)pre-roast (fresh-picked leaves) 2)during the roast and 3)as a finished product
He's using a bowl heated by a propane flame and continually moves the leaves in it for 45 minutes (starts with gloves and takes them off partway into the process as the leaves don't convey so much of the heat once they dry out a bit).
There are three steps to this 45 minute process:
1) 杀青 killing the color: he flips the leaves repeatedly to turn them from fresh green to a sort of roasted green
2) 揉捻 kneading and twirling: this rolls the leaves; biluochun dry consists of very tightly twisted leaves which, when water is added, open to resume their normal shape)
3) 炒干 "frying" the leaves dry (frying in this sense not that there is oil; there isn't. but rather that he's using a wok-like instrument to directly convey the heat)

Thank you for that wonderful contribution. Very informative. Question, is the tea ready to brew right then or does it have to set for a bit afterwards? Nice to see info like this here . Hope to see more of you and welcome.

Thanks.
Yes, it's ready as soon as he is done (and you can see in the third picture I was having a glass from the batch just finished). The key to green tea is freshness. They start picking the leaves in March, and the prime pick is from the Tomb Sweeping Festival (清明节), first week of April. There will be successively lower quality picks after that; not sure at what point they leave the bushes alone...
The tea will keep until the fall, when the leaves are then considered to have lost their freshness and taste, and really only serve for unscrupulous tea vendors to mix into batches of new tea the next year. We usually store green tea in "smell tight" bags and containers in the fridge, or a special tea fridge for the very hard core.

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Calling all Oolong lovers. Here is something I have not seen before. Perhaps some of you have. This is a 15 year, aged Tieguanyin. Instead of the usual floral flavors there is a raisin-ey, apricot flavor to it with a touch of something spicy. The first steeping was rather weak. But it has a long aftertaste that lingers. It requires a little more tea in the ratio than some others to get enough momentum to really get the full experience.

Attachment 232300

Attachment 232301

Wulongs aren't my strong area (Fujian is quite a bit south of me; I'm in green tea country) but they say there are a set number of flavor categories, either 15ish or 30ish, I can't remember (one of the stranger of those was "cat piss" or "sheep shit" or something along those lines; have not had the chance to try that yet). Another is "fruit" and I've tried a few kinds from that category, and as you said, a very nice lingering aftertaste.
For fermented teas (such as Wulong) usually the first steep is a "wash"; 90C water on and off, and throw it away, so that first weak one doesn't get drunk. The next one would be about 50 seconds with the 90C water, and each successive steep would be 10 seconds longer than the previous. Depends on the variety of course, but I find I usually get 8-10 steeps out of one pot, with the most flavorful falling somewhere around the first to third time.

Note: green teas are not fermented and don't usually get washed, since the nicer (and hence more delicate) varieties only provide 2-4 steeps per pot, and the most flavorful is always the first time