tommyroland wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:39 pm
I am new here and have something to ask, if I want to make a good cup of tea, is the amount of water different? For example, green tea, breakfast tea and oolong tea, is the amount of water when brewing different?
Thanks!
Welcome!
You will get many different answers if you ask many different tea drinkers here, but I think all will agree is that what matters is whether you like the resulting tea. And I'm guessing from the way you wrote your question that you're using teabags. You can get better teas that may taste good more concentrated (more leaf/less water) and that may have more flavor to give (less leaf/more water/multiple infusions) when buying loose leaf. But regardless of the tea's source or form (bagged, loose, rolled, compressed), it's all about what you like and how you like it.
And: different teas are traditionally brewed differently. I tend to infuse the same leaves multiple times, and teas that tend to bitterness (most blacks, many greens) I infuse shorter (in some cases, as fast as I can pour the water in and out of the pot again) and less leaf to water; teas that do not (most oolongs, shou/ripe puerh), I infuse longer and more leaf to water.
I routinely determine leaf to water ratio now by eye and experience, but I needed to use a scale off and on as I trained my 'eye' with different teas, and I still sometimes use one for reference when sharing tea brewing parameters. Different teas vary hugely in their weight per teaspoon and your teaspoons may vary too....
Why I prefer a scale by
debunix, on Flickr
Temperature of the water is also key to many teas, because the flavors we like and the bitter compounds dissolve out of the leaf at different rates at different temps, and I hated greens until I learned shorter/cooler infusions and now I like them very much.
And finally, one of the most important things I didn't realize for a long time: if the result is too strong/bitter, don't toss it out, but first dilute with more water to see if you like it better that way. If it still tastes vile when you have diluted it enough for the flavor to be losing the good parts too, then for sure start over. But sometimes a little dilution is all you need.
Here are some examples of how I've brewed different teas:
debunix wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:32 pm
30 year old Dong Ding from Wistaria Tea House, a tea Victoria introduced me to recently and thank goodness more was still available.
The scent of just the dry leaves of this one is insane: fruity, earthy, spicy, sweet....clearly roasted, but not smelling of the roast. It's amazing. I'm prepping only a tiny bit of leaf because it's already warming up too much for a long session of hot tea, so it is just 1.9 grams, which will have plenty of room in Petr's treebark pot.
about 100mL water just off the boil, 30 seconds or so: the smells rising off the liquor, enjoyed in a tallish Tetsuki Nakao Spring Galaxy yunomi to capture the scent, are just as promised from the dry leaf. It's sweet, honey and raisins and dried cherries, so nice.
Another infusion, 1 minute or so, so similar, deep honey dipped dried fruits, hints of spice. Mmmm.
Lost track of time with the third, but let it go several minutes...and still so, so good. Thick liquor, deep flavor, rich scent, beautiful color of the liquor.
and quite different for this green tea:
debunix wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:22 pm
Five Penny (Yen Bai) green tea from Hatvala, Vietnam
Five Penny is a highly refreshing wild green tea from Suoi Giang in Yen Bai province. The tea produces a smooth, sweet liquor with light floral notes that become sweeter and more grassy with each infusion. A gentle hint bitterness on the tongue serves to emphasis the sweet aftertaste that lingers long after the tea has been drunk.
Five Penny is a one bud and two leaves green tea...
leaf is delicate curls of deep green to white thin leaves, deep vegetal scent with hint of fruitiness
4.3 grams in 80-90 mL Petr Novak unglazed shiboridashi
first infusion 60 seconds with water 180 degrees
scent like cooked peas, tea is delicate, a hint of floral, a little cooked spring vegetables; leaves are lovely rich green
second 30 seconds, water cooled a bit to 170 degrees
more cooked peas, delicate, floral is gone, more light vegetables with astringent/bitter hints in aftertaste
3rd another 30 seconds, water to 160, haven't reheated
bitter coming out over cooked peas
4th at 30 seconds, water off boil
delicate and even floral vegetal notes are back but bitterness is up
5th at 1 minute, water off boil, then diluted about 1.5 fold with cool water
delicate vegetal goodness and bitterness now better balanced, going to call this one done now
It may not be as concrete an answer as you were looking for, but I hope this helps!