I have never heard the name of “grandpa style” brewing method before, but when Don mentioned it, I immediately know what he’s referring to cuz it’s literally how my grandpa brews his tea lol, putting a ton of leaves in a cup and refilling water throughout the day lol (I come from Fujian, China)
A welcome return to your orchestra example. I add to it the idea of sometimes wanting an orchestra and sometimes wanting a string quartet, perhaps. That ties in well with the three different parameters you've explained here. The main thing is, tea makes music. All sorts to suit all our tastes. Bravo! 🎶🍃🍵💚
Thanks or the video. The rule of extraction (from chemistry) is that, for a given final volume of solvent, using more portions of smaller volume (aliquots) extracts more than using all the solvent at once. You're certainly right, they knew how to be efficient! I brew kinda Western style with a mesh basket and use about twice the suggested amount. Am I a monster? I almost always get 3 good infusions. Less just tastes.. less. I'm really enjoying this series.
As much as I always took it for gospel, I still have never been able to wrap my head around why/how that would be the case (despite understanding his music analogy, with a music production background myself). But knowing there’s a scientific explanation behind it is good to know! Although I’m still left with wanting to understand why it works that way ;)
@@daniel.lopresti There are equations you could look at that show how it works, but it's not easy to see unless you punch the numbers in and work through. What it comes down to is that smaller washes always end up with a higher concentration of solute than if you did them all at once. We all know using less water makes a stronger cup of tea*, it's an extension of this principle. It's true for each 'cup' made from the same leaves. Hope this helped, I admit to struggling to explain it well. edit:*indicating higher concentration/extraction
@@troyclayton Thanks for that. I guess what I'd like to know (and test, one day) is whether making 3 cups gong-fu style with 1/3 the volume of water in each infusion (adapting infusion time proportionally) - and then combining those 3 cups together - would give the same result as making 1 cup of the same total amount of water as the 3 earlier cups. Because for the life of me, I can't see why there should be any difference! If anything (disclaimer: I haven't studied chemistry), you'd intuitively think that the larger volume of water would give more space to dissipate flavour more than the more "cramped" smaller volumes - same reason teabags are considered inferior. Re: "We all know using less water makes a stronger cup of tea", true, but we're also doing much shorter infusions, and Don specifically says it's not about strength per se, but richness. My guess is that even if you were to compare the two systems, it's hard to really know if all the 3 parameters relate to each other proportionally, and so you might not really be comparing apples to apples (or oolongs to oolongs ;) ).
Really informative and useful series. Thank you for sharing your tea knowledge and for bringing great tea to the western world! Very much looking forward to the next episode.
Actually leaf to water ratio is changing throughout entire session (but mostly in the beginning), because some water gets absorbed by the leaf, thus reducing room for water in next infusions. Just checked that with ball rolled oolong - pear cloud using tiny whait gaiwan from your store getting around 58g of water when pouring into empty one used 3g of tea and i got: 52g rinse 49g 1st infusion 48g 2nd infusion 47g 7th infusion as you see, differences are not that big later on, pretty much negligible but pretty significant during 1st infusion (18% less in 1st infusion compared to empty gaiwan, 6% less compared to rinse) Other tea types will most likely absorb less water, but still it will always be the case. Of course this is not something that changes way of brewing tea, but it's worth to note that you are actually getting less tea volume that you might think and might guide you if you should increase time of next infusion by seeing how much leaf expanded And I suppose that is also why some teas require rinse - to absorb some initial water before they start giving good stuff back
@@Verilo I have to use a brewing vessel with a handle to do oolongs. I've got near asbestos fingers, but I still can't gaiwan an oolong with my bare hand.
How does the hardness of the water affect the flavour of the tea? I live in a very hard water area. I tried filtering the water and it made a significant difference to my taste. What are your thoughts? Do you filter the water in your Camden tea shop?
I'm on my 6th day of no coffee and just tea. Been brewing somewhat like gongfu brewing. Probably a little off on the amount of leaf, but it's been going well.
What a great series! Thank you, I'm enjoying this a lot. Any tips for controlling water temperature if you're using one of the little stoves with walnut/olive shell charcoal?
New customer and viewer here- loving all the great content! Regarding raw pu-erh: I've recently picked up a small batch from another vendor and I found the tea quite astringent- even with short brews- at the 5g/100ml measurement. Do raw pu-erhs vary in their astringency? Would you say that you might scale back the leaf/water ratio on certain raw pu-erhs? I ask because I really enjoy the aforementioned ratio on shou pu-erhs, so I was quite surprised that I really had to cut it down with the raw pu-erh I picked up.
Hey Nick - I have heard Don talk about this before, I hope you don't mind me chiming in. He would recommend to either lower the water temperature or shorten the infusion. You can also use less leaf to lighten up the brew a bit, but with that you will also lose a hint of the richness that is desirable. Also, raw puerhs certainly vary in character - some being more astringent than others. If you are new to tea in general, I would say puerhs are the most "acquired tastes" of the bunch, as raw puerhs can have that astringency that sometimes needs to grow on the drinker with time. I think experimenting is the best way to find that sweet spot that you prefer!
@@willpopemusic Thanks for the reply! Yes- I ended up reducing 3g/100ml... Even at 195F at higher ratios, for more than a brief steep, was still too much; I didn't think going below 195F was going to get me the best results for this tea. Like you suggested, I'm going to play around with it a bit, but I also would like to try some other raw pu-erhs (I've got another small selection coming) to explore the genre a bit. I do, however, enjoy the ripe stuff.
@@nickhays6210 Hey Nick - yes, I have the same issue with raw puerhs. There are people, who are somehow sensitive to this type of tea. Well, I ended up with 3,5 grams in my 150 ml gaiwan with approx 15 secs infusions(+5secs each steep).
Do you use sweeteners? I'm loving learning about these things. I'm a tea lover, but now I'm sad knowing I've been using the wrong style all my life 😂😊. No more western style teas for me.
11 months later... He absolutely doesn't use sweeteners. With good Chinese tea, using sweeteners would absolutely destroy the nuance of the flavors. 👍👍
4:55 I would describe it as more diverse tone colour(s), a broader (sonic) spectrum. More frequencies. If I'm understanding it correctly that is. If volume/loudness/pressure (the temperature in tea analogy) is the thickness of the brush, pencil, crayon, etc. (luminosity, or 'luma' in video) Then the richness would be the amount of lines drawn, and the amount of different kinds of colours used. There is grandpa style brewing. But I personally drink my rinses. It's the new kid on the block, the new fad, called 'hobo style brewing'. Extra points if you cut open mass produced commodity brand supermarket black 'tea' bags bought for 1 cent a gram, and call the supposed cut leaf fannings + dust: small leaf black tea! Interesting thing, during the time I was watching this video, I was drinking a cheap store bought (about 4 or 5 cents a gram) gunpowder 'green' (bit more like an oolong to me to be honest, but if it's produced as a green tea, well, then it's a green tea) tea, and it has a minerality to it. Quite remarkable. Kind of chalky, stone/sea shell type of thing. *Both* in the smell as on the tongue. Remniscent of a tieguanyin I had.
I know it is not your preferred approach but I drink all my tea western style and I would love to see an entire foundations video on western style. I mainly grab a cup and get to work on the computer. I've tried gong fu style and it tastes slightly better but takes too long to for when I am working. I also like a small amount of sugar in my tea and would like to see that covered in a foundations video, perhaps along with milk/cream which I do not use but understand is popular in your country.
In western style you can still experiment with different water temperatures and brewing times, but you basically get out all the flavour in one go, theres not much you can do... For the sugar: Im not sure you understand. Imagine this: imagine putting sugar in a good wine. Typically you put milk in english breakfast tea or something like that. That tea is actually a cheap blend by definition. Nothing wring with it i think there isnt much to discuss.
So an Oolong tea that looks very green like Anxi dragon of iron goddess should be brewed at lower temperatures? Cause the general rule for Oolong is boiling water.
In The South (USA) we boil it for an extended time and then let it sit steeping till cool... Then add enough sugar and ice to make it taste good. ROTFL!
I'm from the South as well. I love gong fu brewing (Don here introduced me), but I also know that good Southern tea should be so sweet if you run out of syrup, you can pour it on your pancakes LOL. But yeah, ENTIRELY different methods. Not even close. But then the results aren't close either. And that's ok. My grandma's sweet tea was so good if you put a cup of it on your head, your tongue would beat your brains out trying to get to it. I miss her sweet tea.
Honestly, I would love to brew Gong Fu style, but I cannot afford it. If 40g of tea costs 30€ and I would love to drink it daily, then I‘m running out of money pretty soon.
you absolutely don't need that expensive tea! The great thing is that even very mediocre tea will taste much better with gong fu brewing. i used to live in China for a long time and tea that was ranging from RMB30 to RMB200 for half a kilo was a killer. with black teas the price is going to be even less
I recently got 25g of a really good pu ehr for about £5. I used 3.5g in a 70ml Gaiwan i.e. about £0.70 worth. I got 10 infusions which is 70cl i.e. 1 bottle of wines worth, for £0.70 (about €0.85)
Not necessarily too small for single person brewing, check Gaiwans on mei leaf, they range from 60 ml to 150 ml. Also, back to your original point, lots of small infusions means you can really enjoy gong fu without breaking the bank!!
