Can't Tea(ch) an old dog new tricks.

[Matthew Evans]

I've gotten some good Assam on line from Amazon. Company called Vahdam.

I keep meaning to try this method. I haven't yet, but will eventually. My main motivation is trying to see what it does to the tannins in the tea. I like a lot of tannins rich things, but my wife finds them bitter, and can't handle most red wine, beer, tea or coffee without a lot of creamer/sugar. If it cuts the astringent nature of the tea a bit I might actually get her to drink tea occasionally, since I believe tannins are the main contributor.

We have a pan-asian market about 25 minutes away that we are going to check out eventually. I've not found good lo mien noodles, bean sprouts and several other things in the grocery stores that we used frequently before moving. I frequently go out of town to jobsites, So I've been picking things like that when I'm out of town for the last year.

 

[Hayden]

Tea is really something wonderful.
My father always bought good black tea from a tea shop. Now they often drink a little bit more coffee which is also good but another thing on its own.

At the moment i have some korean green tea which tastes great. I like the hay notes in this tea.
I also like black tea and i love jasmin tea.

I also try now to take a little bit more leaf and brew it multiply times the chinese way.

Tea is really a little bit like tobacco. It is amazing how some changes in the production and the consumption can make a great difference.

 

[Matthew Evans]

@ChinaVoodoo how large is your gaiwan? The white/blue one looked a bit larger than the brown.

I bought one that looks identical to your brown gaiwan and used it earlier today, but I do like a larger cup of tea. A 3oz cup of tea just doesn't cut it except for taste testing. I'd like to get one that I can brew at least an 8 oz cup of tea in.

I had bought it online, and should have looked beyond the child's hand in the photo for size comparison. Volume wasn't listed, but figured it would have been a little larger than it turned out to be. My fault for not asking before buying.

Tea was fantastic, however. Much less astringent. Fresh Assam from Vadham again.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

@ChinaVoodoo how large is your gaiwan? The white/blue one looked a bit larger than the brown.

I bought one that looks identical to your brown gaiwan and used it earlier today, but I do like a larger cup of tea. A 3oz cup of tea just doesn't cut it except for taste testing. I'd like to get one that I can brew at least an 8 oz cup of tea in.

I had bought it online, and should have looked beyond the child's hand in the photo for size comparison. Volume wasn't listed, but figured it would have been a little larger than it turned out to be. My fault for not asking before buying.

Tea was fantastic, however. Much less astringent. Fresh Assam from Vadham again.

It takes three brews to fill an 8oz cup, so I'm guessing it's a 4oz gaiwan because of the amount of space the tea takes up.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

The blue one takes two brews to fill an 8oz cup. I think if you go too big, you will either start steeping longer with less tea, only using teas that are strong enough to steep twice, or making a batch last several days.

If I take 5 to 8g of tea, I can brew it 4 to 6 times in the small one to yield from a 12oz cup to two 8oz cups. If I doubled the size of the gaiwan, I would be using more tea than I would want to drink in a day.