As tea enthusiasts, we love teas from all over the world, but our expertise lies exclusively in Chinese tea. I (Zhen) grew up in a tea family with over 20 years experience in both academic (book publications and guest professor in major universities) and practical (helping farmers and producers improve their tea quality) sides of tea in China. Phil as a newbie to tea has a different experience than most western tea drinkers. He has been trained by a seasoned Chinese tea expert making him a great bridge between western culture and Chinese tea and culture.
We want to make this channel a free education platform for tea lovers who are interested in learning about the real deal. If you have had professional training, you will find info here that you cannot find elsewhere. For those who just want to enjoy some tea and learn a little, this is also where we share our tea journey.
I dunno if you still read/reply to these comments, but I've been getting into gong-fu lately and we had a rock tea included with the teaware I purchased, and when we had it it tasted much as you said, very distinctly cinnamon and flavorful. I've been chasing that tea for a while now, and found a couple of variants that might be the right thing, but I simply cannot get it to taste like anything other than coffee. The one I ordered most recently on the first steep tasted SO CLOSE to being right, and then every steep thereafter returned to that coffee-ish flavor, which brought me here. One thing I noticed is how fast your steep is right away, and that may very well be my entire problem, I tend to let it sit for a bit (a couple seconds, adding a couple after a handful of steeps), does oversteeping this kind of tea lead to that kind of flavor? Or, the other thing I noticed is that you mentioned filling the gaiwan 2/3 full of the leaf, is that the space it should take BEFORE adding water? And is that a general rule of thumb for most teas (i know that rolled up oolongs like the milk tea I have get HUGE, but I haven't ever used THAT much of the leaves before. Could it be one or both of those things, do you think? (I'll be testing it later but I just had to ask while it was in my mind).
Zhen, this comment is for this video. At the encouragement of my wife, who like you has been drinking tea her whole life and has never used a scale or clock to measure the amount tea or the brewing time, and the encouragement of tea drinking friends in the States, who have suggested that using the intuitive brewing method is a part of my Ch'an (Zen) practice, I have finally hidden the digital scale and put my iPhone with its stopwatch function out of reach when brewing tea. I was an engineer for the first few decades of my working life and this was a difficult step.
Zhen, this is a comment for your video on the dangers of hot water from a few months ago and from another video on which I commented about hot water, but can't remember which one. I said I thought the temperature of boiling water in Beijing seemed hotter than at our Colorado home and you asked me to measure the water temperature when I returned to the States. Beijing is between 30 and 40 meters (130 and 140 feet) above sea level, thereby essentially sea level; the water boils at 100ºC (212ºF). Our Colorado home is in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains at 1,830 meters (6,000 feet) above sea level. This morning I stuck a thermometer in a kettle of boiling water and it showed 94ºC (201ºF). Boiling water is hotter in Beijing. The rule of thumb I've long used was that because of the lower atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes, the boiling temperature of water is 2ºF lower for every 1,000 foot gain in altitude from sea level; the thermometer bears this out. How does the lower boiling temperature affect brewing times for some teas? When I brew an oolong or a puerh, I merely let it steep the length of an additional moderately deep full breath before serving it and that seems to be fine.
I really love this video, i have wuyi rock tea but i don't have a tea pot to brew it 😞 i tried using normal water kettle but the tea tastes bitter every time
I've been trying to find out how to keep the kettle temperature right between each infusion everywhere, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to keep the kettle hot or keeping boiling it, so thank you for answering this!!
Regarding steeping times,for me,(and I rarely use Gaiwan,mostly clay teapots),I pour the hot water on the Puerh,then pour hot water on the outside of the pot. When the outside goes dry,I typically pour at that point. I tweak it as needed,usually increasing the steeping time based on that.
Ah! I am new(ish),just over 2 years in,the instinctive thing is very slowly coming around for me. And steeping Oolong instinctively is a true sign that you know what you are doing! Respect!
Wait, why do you only steep the leaves about five times??? I get a shou from Meil Leaf called Nug Potion, and I swear it could last me for days! I've used a batch from noon til five am... and the body feel is still strong! I've even had sheng puerhs that last me a day and a half as well!
it would have been helpful to say what the exact brewing method are that lead to the issue. i have heard this happens in tibet where they boil the tea.
Oh! A very interesting video! I typically use a 50/50 mix of spring water and distilled. Now the reason isn’t because of the floridization of tap water,it’s just a saturation thing,lots of calcium,etc in tap,so I think it hinders flavor extraction in the tea. Water is levels of vaccuum,if that makes sense. Just distilled is too much vaccuum,but spring water needs to be there,the minerality (including fluoride) is there,it marries nicely in a brewing session. How strange,certain people in China use soda ash?? Aka calcium carbonate,I use it at work at the chemical plant(jealous?🤣) It’s basically alka-seltzer,I can’t imagine using that in tea making,but it is a digestive aid,perhaps they use it to increase the digestive properties of tea?
Soda ash is a common cooking ingredient in China. People often use it with flour for noodles or steamed buns. Some people like to use it when making porridge too. But I feel that it's more popular among the older generations, and it's slowly falling out of fashion.
Great question Mom! I don't know if such a thing exists, but I don't think it would work well with black coffee and I think it would be very bad with coffee with dairy due to its porous nature. ❤️
It’s a thrill to me to see any videos of the teapots. I started off,making typical rookie mistakes,so I own a few pots that I would never use in any serious way,but I do have some doozies now,in fact,I just recieved a river stone-like Zhuni teapot,it’s so smooth solid and clean,it almost needs no seasoning whatsoever! I’ll use a Gaiwan from time to time,but I’ve not noticed a difference,plus the pure aesthetics of using a precious little Yixing teapot pleases me to no end! I’m still learning about the different forms being better for this tea,or that tea. I do have enough teapots to generally dedicate to all 6 types.
Great Video! i think you didn't talk about effects of the clay on the character of the brewed tea itsself. What are your opinions/experiences on that topic? I only have one yixing pot so far, it is a nice pot, but I am a bit skeptical about whether it really changes the brew in any noticable way, compared to glazed porcelain.
I'm not sure what your glazed porcelain is in the form of. I think people generally agree that porcelain delivers a more "true taste" of tea while clay teapots trade some aroma for more body and reduced astringency, etc. I don't personally own an Yixing pot yet, but I have various teapots in different clays and shapes, fired for different times, and different sized clay and porcelain gaiwans as well. Living in a tropical, hot humid environment, my teas also tend to change character every few weeks or even from day to day (despite my best storage efforts), so almost every time I brew tea - and I have about 10 different types at the moment - I'm almost certainly drinking something different. Another thing to note is that Yixing is actually an umbrella term for a whole set of different clays that are mined in the area and they range from extremely porous and muting (Duanni) to almost non-porous and non-muting (Zhuni). With time to come, I'm sure one would be able to differentiate between all the various subtleties that different clays, pot shapes, pot sizes, and makers can make the tea taste differently... But I'm fairly certain at least that there is a definitive difference between tea brewed in a porcelain versus a clay vessel. YMMV. Cheers.
Thanks for those useful advices. Not the first time I watch one of your videos... Now, I will click for more content ^_^. I had read an article that recommended to rinse pu ehr tea for microbacterial reasons. As many of us enjoy the health benefits of tea, I give those rinses to my curly hair tea pet for me and my guests to stay safer. With the dusty days of spring, as there is not many trees and greenery around yet, I couldn't wait for rain to come and clean the air. It had happened this morning and now I think I will gong fu brew...
Ah! Chinese vinegar,how interesting. I use Italian vinegar,it’s part of my culture. But I must explore this one,it sounds amazing! I work at a chemical plant,we use acetic anhydride,it is literally water-free super concentrated vinegar. Smells wonderful from a distance,but will pull the air out of your lungs,nearby. It reacts violently when introduced to water!!! Vinegar. The beautiful thing that requires that precious balance…
on my personal experience having both Yixing and Zhuni, I observed that Yixing is porous, lighter and retains heat better and has a hollow sound when hit… while Zhuni, which I personally like, is finer and has a metal like sound when hit with its lid.
As Hangzhou was the first Chinese city I visited for pleasure, not work, I imagine that is why I have a nostalgic preference for Long Jing. How does the climate differences impact if at all the two teas. Yes, I know the process is paramount, but climate may have an undertone effect. Great information, as always. 🐷猪八戒
Thanks Zhen, I really appreciate your knowledge and expertise. In a world full of fakes and counterfeits it is so comforting to find a trust-worthy source to help navigate your way through the tea world!🙂
Thank you,and yes as with all things nutrition, people are looking for simplistic answer and silver bullets.If you lifestyles and diet suck ,no ammount of tea or excercise will help you.😊
This video fascinates me,because I love Pu Erh,but black tea,I really love. One of the reasons is,unlike all the 5 other types,black tea seems the most shelf stable(if stored properly,of course). It is the tea of stability,consistency,it gives the pleasure of the expected,rather than the unexpected,which is not a bad thing,in fact it’s the quality of a good daily morning drinker. It’s also a great tea to offer friends who are otherwise unfamiliar with quality loose leaf,and who might not like Pu Erh at all.
Amazing video. Just FYI, Wusandi is not really "Zhengyan" area, but the trees there are older and better than the more inner "San Yan Feng" area, so I do not doubt that the tea you have punches above its weight. For my taste, I go for Hui Yuan Keng SX, as a matter of fact most of the best yancha I have (incl. Tieluohan, Shuijingui) come from HYK. Its the largest and most diverse micro-climate (within which one finds Gui dong, Feng shu ke, etc.) in the inner-most area, with the elegance/subtlety that allows one to go beyond the roast and cultivar, and actually taste the "herbs" and medicinal quality which is so prized in the world of yancha. Seems like HYK produces, to quote a phrase from wine-industry, teas which give the "iron-fist in the velvet glove", as opposed to the more famed but less elegant Ma tou yan, Niu lan keng, Wu yuan jian, etc.
Thank you for this video. We found some beautiful cups from the 1970s that apparently were made for restaurants and were found in an abandoned warehouse in southern China. They have beautiful, unusual patterns with "grains of rice" in the ceramics to let light come through. My wife also bought the gaiwan. This giawan is too large for me to use to brew tea for one or two (I use 100ml to 150ml pots and gaiwan) and while it would be beautiful as a piece of art on a shelf, I'm not a collector and think teaware should be used. This gaiwan is a perfect size from which to drink. I normally don't drink green tea as I generally find it too weak, but we have some Longing and I tried using the amount you recommended. Wow. It was wonderful. I have no doubt that using a gaiwan made it taste even better.
