What Green Are You Drinking

Non-oxidized tea
Vanenbw
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Wed Jan 01, 2020 7:04 am

@Janice: Do you brew your Jasmine pearls in a Yixing pot? Is that the pot showing in your photo? I'm drinking strictly Japanese greens at this point, but I'm thinking of picking up a gaiwan, for starters, and trying some Chinese teas.
Janice
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Wed Jan 01, 2020 12:42 pm

That’s a glazed pot in the photo. A fully glazed Gaiwan would be a good option for Chinese greens.
Vanenbw
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Wed Jan 01, 2020 5:04 pm

Thank you. I figured it's time I branch out and try some other teas.
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Victoria
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:20 pm

Well, this morning I blended the end of two packs, Birouen Tea House’s Kabusecha and O-Cha ‘s Yutaka Midori Shincha 2019, and got a very bitter brew plus a totally clogged pour using Junzo’s Kobiwako clay kyusu that has a wall filter. The end of bag needles from Yutaka Midori were super fine and steeped well at 161F/35-45 seconds, whereas the Kabusecha larger needles steeped best at 155F/90 seconds. During the clogged second steep I transferred the soggy mess into a large open mouth stainless strainer. A reminder that when blending to make sure timing and temp are pretty similar, and end of bag needles will be much finer so a fine sesame filter is a better choice. Also, using the large stainless strainer reminded me that before getting my first kyusu, I think I might have been using these big strainers in cups to steep sencha. @Bok’s recent thread Your First Teapot..show off! has had me trying to remember how I steeped Japanese greens before getting a real kyusu. Into the second steep, my taste buds adjusted to the bitterness and it became a very pleasant broth to sip on.

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Vanenbw
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 6:58 pm

Sounds interesting. Do you blend teas often? It's not something I ever considered doing, and I wouldn't even know how, save for just pure experimentation. I've never tried strainers or infusers. Before I purchased my kyusu, I was using the Daiso tea bags to brew my tea. Recently I have been considering purchasing an infuser or something for when I am in a hurry and don't want to mess with the kyusu. That's my only means of brewing loose leaf green tea at this point.
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Victoria
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 8:54 pm

Vanenbw wrote:
Wed Jan 08, 2020 6:58 pm
Sounds interesting. Do you blend teas often? It's not something I ever considered doing, and I wouldn't even know how, save for just pure experimentation. I've never tried strainers or infusers. Before I purchased my kyusu, I was using the Daiso tea bags to brew my tea. Recently I have been considering purchasing an infuser or something for when I am in a hurry and don't want to mess with the kyusu. That's my only means of brewing loose leaf green tea at this point.
With Japanese greens I blend when small amounts are left in a few different bags, so I’ll combine them. In this case, one steeped best at 35-45sec and the other 90sec so combining them wasn’t ideal. When I’m in a hurry and on the go I really like kabusecha tea bags from Birouen Tea House or shincha from O-Cha. They are very rich and high quality, with no bitterness. @debunix and a few other use loose leaf in a thermos.
Vanenbw
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:02 pm

Okay, in that case I have blended before. If I come to the end of a cannister of tea and there is not enough for a serving, I will blend it with some tea from a new bag. You can hardly tell the difference with the store bought teas. I think the difference, if any, would be discernible in a higher quality tea.
Kennith1287
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Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:34 am

Lemon green Tea I Was Drinking...
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Mrs. Chip
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:34 am

Sae Midori from O-Cha served in our wintry, white Kairagi Hagi cups by Kashun, brewed in one of our 260 Mil Yamada Sou direct wall filter kyusu. This kyusu pours 100 percent times better than the Guisi used yesterday.

Yesterday, Chip used a Guisi direct wall ... not the perfect pour for fukamushi, despite Chip's best efforts, but delish nonetheless.
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Victoria
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:47 pm

Jo wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:34 am
Sae Midori from O-Cha served in our wintry, white Kairagi Hagi cups by Kashun, brewed in one of our 260 Mil Yamada Sou direct wall filter kyusu. This kyusu pours 100 percent times better than the Guisi used yesterday.

Yesterday, Chip used a Guisi direct wall ... not the perfect pour for fukamushi, despite Chip's best efforts, but delish nonetheless.
Interesting @Jo, is there a noticeable difference between the two direct wall filters? I have also found certain filters work much better with fine fukamushi needles, mostly sesame filters, but sometimes ball and direct wall filters work as well. I haven’t analyzed yet why that is though with each kyusu. How the flow, size and placement of perforations in a kyusu are crafted varies even with each artist. When in doubt though with a new very fine needle sencha I usually reach for my Gyokuro sesame filter kyusu that pours like a ferrari.

This morning as I reached for Kagoshima Seicha’s Organic 2018 Sae Midori I wondered if I wasn’t going to get bored with this kabusecha, since I seem to be having it almost every day, but then I thought ’well it will run out and then I’ll just have to move on’. Go for it while it’s still fresh and I have it :) 🍃 and I’m continuing to pair it with the Maekawa Junzo Kobiwako clay kyusu I got from @Chip. This kabusecha and that clay just fit perfectly.

If you guys ever come across another sencha that is like this kabusecha that I shared with you or O-Cha’s Satsuma please let me know. They are both pretty brothy and thick with warming sweet baked bread notes full of umami.
Vanenbw
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:22 pm

Jo wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:34 am
Sae Midori from O-Cha served in our wintry, white Kairagi Hagi cups by Kashun, brewed in one of our 260 Mil Yamada Sou direct wall filter kyusu. This kyusu pours 100 percent times better than the Guisi used yesterday.

Yesterday, Chip used a Guisi direct wall ... not the perfect pour for fukamushi, despite Chip's best efforts, but delish nonetheless.
Sounds nice. Sae Midori Asamuchi is the first tea I tried from O-cha. I'm interested in the Hagiware cups. Very organic, intriguing designs. And the kyusu pot is around the size I would like to pick up eventually. I have a 360ml and a 160ml. It would be nice to have an in between size.
Vanenbw
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:41 pm

Victoria wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:47 pm
When in doubt though with a new very fine needle sencha I usually reach for my Gyokuro sesame filter kyusu that pours like a ferrari.
That's a very nice looking kyusu, and I love the photograph. What size is it? Based on what I'm seeing in the photograph, I'm guessing you stacked your infusions and poured each one off into the pitcher, and the into your cup? Nice glassware, too.
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Mrs. Chip
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:46 pm

Vanenbw wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:22 pm
Jo wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:34 am
Sae Midori from O-Cha served in our wintry, white Kairagi Hagi cups by Kashun, brewed in one of our 260 Mil Yamada Sou direct wall filter kyusu. This kyusu pours 100 percent times better than the Guisi used yesterday.

Yesterday, Chip used a Guisi direct wall ... not the perfect pour for fukamushi, despite Chip's best efforts, but delish nonetheless.
Sounds nice. Sae Midori Asamuchi is the first tea I tried from O-cha. I'm interested in the Hagiware cups. Very organic, intriguing designs. And the kyusu pot is around the size I would like to pick up eventually. I have a 360ml and a 160ml. It would be nice to have an in between size.
Vanenbw, pictures soon of our kyusu and lovely Hagi cups. :mrgreen:
Vanenbw
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:04 pm

Very nice. I've been eyeing a Hagi cup for myself. When I first saw one I thought, It's sort of monstrous now, isn't it? But no, it's quite beautiful in it's organic imperfection. I really do like the Hagiware. Seems like a lot of things are starting to grow on me lately. When I first saw the kobiwako clay pots I thought they looked boring, like a one-note song. But now I seem a subtle allure in it's plainness. Funny how tastes can change so quickly. It reminds me of this ordinary, almost unnoticeable girl, I fell head over heels in love with when I was in high school. She didn't dress fancy, she wasn't popular, and she was rather taciturn. But one day she said something in class, I looked over, and bam! I thought she was the most beautiful creature put on this earth.

Crazy stuff. What can I say, I was scared of Hagiware at first, now I kind of love it. High school all over again.
Vanenbw
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Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:35 pm

I'm enjoying some Sae Midori Asamuchi from O-cha in my new 160ml yohen mogake hiramaru kyusu teapot by Hiroshi Mizuno from Artistic Nippon. I decided to try something different tonight. I watched one of Akira Hojo's videos on brewing green tea on his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adxPErjUHvA). In the video, he is using a higher leaf to water ratio (5gm to 100ml), although it seems like many of you are already using such a high leaf to water ratio. Here is the interesting part though, which opposes most of the suggested brewing techniques I have found online. He pours the hot water into the houhin, and then pours it right out into a glass pitcher. There is literally no steeping time. Then he stacks infusions. I'm trying this tonight, but I'm not stacking the infusions. I'm just pouring one cup at a time, but I'm not steeping it at all. I'm pouring it right out into my cup. It's good, mellow. Not as strong as I would normally like it. I tend to like seeing the cloudy bits of green leaf that settle to the bottom of the cup. I love swirling the cloudy mixture back into the tea and then drinking it as I near bottom of the cup. He said you it would not be uncommon to get 10-20 infusions by steeping in this manner, but my feeling is if each infusion is watered-down, so to speak, what does it matter if you can get 10-20 infusions? I'd rather get 6-8, with the first few being stronger, and the final few sweeter and mellower. I don't know, that's just my thought on it. I'm still experimenting with this technique.

Does anyone else infuse green tea like this? I think some Chinese teas steep quickly, within seconds. Akira does mention that this interesting brewing technique started in China. I guess it's part of the gongfu brewing style. So I wanted to try it out. I still prefer my tea to be a little stronger, but this is a pleasant flavor all the same.
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