Alex wrote:
> xDustinx wrote:
> > I just received a celadon gaiwan from The Imperial Tea Court in San
> > Francisco and I'm pretty excited about it. So far I've brewed some Pi
> > Lo Chun and Tung Ting Jade Oolong in it. Both times I put enough tea
> > leaves in to uniformly cover the bottom in a relatively thin layer.
> > Probably about two teaspoons worth. The first infusion was a minute
> > long with both teas. I noticed that the first infusion tasted slightly
> > bitter, which is not something I'm used to with the other way I brew
> > tea (infuser basket in a mug for whatever time the instructions say).
> > The next couple infusions after the first however, are not bitter, but
> > not quite as flavorful as my normal brewing method. Should I adjust
> > the amount of tea leaves, the infusion time, or is this normal? I'm
> > completely new to gaiwans so any general advice would be helpful as
> > well.
>
> It takes some fine-tuning, and the answer is that you should adjust
> both the amount of leaves and the infusion time for every different tea
> you make. I got a little digital scale from Amazon and have been
> adhering to a strict one-gram-per-ounce-of-water rule, and that's
> really helped me focus on the timing. One other resource that has been
> very useful has been blogs such as Chadao and Teamasters that discuss
> technique and timing. Chadao members are particularly good about
> posting the steep times. I never liked pu'er, but that was because I
> was steeping like eight grams of it in a small yixing for two minutes,
> and now that my technique is improved I am getting dangerously obsessed
> with it.

Thanks for the quick response. I have been reading the Teamasters
blog, which has already helped me considerably. I'm going to check out
the Chadao one. Which scale did you get from Amazon? Picking up a
scale seems like a good idea.