I guess I should start contributing a little more:
2018 Dong Ding competition 2 flowers
I've drank close to a kilogram of this tea in the past 2 years. Generally, I find it to be ok. Kind of watery, but pleasant.
I tested 3 waters
#1) [0] Distilled water
#2) [low]
#3) [high]
#2 was made with 1.5L of distilled water plus 5mL KHCO3 [1g/10mL] plus 48mL CaCO3 (~1g/L, carbonated in sodastream). I split this water in half and to one portion:
#3 was 750mL of #2 plus 2.5mL KHCO3 and 25mL CaCO3 in order to double the concentration.
Using a TDS meter
#1) 0 ppm
#2) 68 ppm
#3) 106 ppm
I used 3.0 g of tea in each 30 mL gaiwan.
Water was boiled and kept at 200-205F in multiple kettles.
Warmed gaiwans with respective kettle water. No rinse.
1st and 2nd steep were 1 minute each.
3rd steep was 2.5 minutes
4th steep was 15 minutes.
Basically, the trend kept for all steeping progression. The distilled water was the worst. The aroma of the wet leaves was least. The flavor was the least. Liquor was thin and empty. The [low] had thicker mouthfeel and much more flavor. The [high] had the thickest mouthfeel, but seemed muted compared to the [low].
A big thing with Dong Ding is the aroma structure. When you taste good DD, the flavor goes up into your head and blooms like an ice crystal growing. The distilled water structure hit the roof of my mouth and a bit into the nose, but stopped. The [low] traveled higher and bloomed ok. The [high] was almost non existant.
Pushing the steep yielded stronger infusions for each, but the distilled water produced unpleasant l, metallic, astringent effects. I was never able to get rid of the thin tasting water.
Conclusion:
It seems that the general recommendation of intermediate hardness is a good one ... at least for this DD. This is a very simple recipe and there are already a lot of questions. For one, I dont know the exact concentration of CaCO3. When I add 1g/900mL of water and then carbonate, there is a small amount of powder that does not dissolve. There seems to be more precipitate as the CO2 leaves the water over the course of a week or two. There is also a pH component. That is after all how the CaCO3 dissolves in the acidic CO2/H20. I assume that the bicarbonate buffers this, but I don't know. I'll have to actually measure the pH one day.
The other problem here, is that I dont have a very subtle palate.
From left to right) [0], [low] and [high]
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