Temperature is a bigger (sole?) contributor to bitterness than steeping time. You can steep sencha or gyokuro overnight in the fridge and it isn’t bitter at all. I suspect there is something wrong with your temperatures, especially as you mention flash steeping sencha. I can think of no reason for doing this with sencha.LuckyMe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:41 pmI notice pour time affects the flavor of sencha in a couple of situations. One is when I'm pouring back and forth between cups instead of directly into a pitcher or single teacup. Although serving tea in this manner is fun, it naturally prolongs the pour thus bringing out more bitterness.
Another is flash steeping. Sometimes, I'll flash steep using near boiling water for the second cup and an extra 5 or 6 seconds can affect flavor. This is one time when metal strainers do a better job than sasame.
Sencha: what water temp do you use for the second cup?
If there's one thing I've learned from gongfu brewing, it's that time can be just as much a contributing factor to bitterness as temperature. I ambient brew green tea all the time and find that bitterness begins setting in if left to steep longer than 2 hours. Same thing with cold brewing if you leave it in the fridge too long. The key to the optimal brew is balancing all of the variables which are temperature, time, leaf quantity, and water ratio.Baisao wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:09 pmTemperature is a bigger (sole?) contributor to bitterness than steeping time. You can steep sencha or gyokuro overnight in the fridge and it isn’t bitter at all. I suspect there is something wrong with your temperatures, especially as you mention flash steeping sencha. I can think of no reason for doing this with sencha.LuckyMe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:41 pmI notice pour time affects the flavor of sencha in a couple of situations. One is when I'm pouring back and forth between cups instead of directly into a pitcher or single teacup. Although serving tea in this manner is fun, it naturally prolongs the pour thus bringing out more bitterness.
Another is flash steeping. Sometimes, I'll flash steep using near boiling water for the second cup and an extra 5 or 6 seconds can affect flavor. This is one time when metal strainers do a better job than sasame.
Flash steeping the second cup was recommended by one Japanese vendor for fukamashi. It works with better with some teas than others. Hojo has a similar method for flash brewing sencha.
I think there may be some details missing. The bitter components of tea are mostly insoluble below 80°C. It's conceivable that a poorly processed tea could become bitter with room temperature water but that is not something I have experienced or have heard of. I don't drink much fukamushi sencha but perhaps the extra steaming has caused bitter compounds to be extracted and deposited onto the exterior of the leaves, released into solution when water has been added.LuckyMe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:34 pmIf there's one thing I've learned from gongfu brewing, it's that time can be just as much a contributing factor to bitterness as temperature. I ambient brew green tea all the time and find that bitterness begins setting in if left to steep longer than 2 hours. Same thing with cold brewing if you leave it in the fridge too long. The key to the optimal brew is balancing all of the variables which are temperature, time, leaf quantity, and water ratio.Baisao wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:09 pmTemperature is a bigger (sole?) contributor to bitterness than steeping time. You can steep sencha or gyokuro overnight in the fridge and it isn’t bitter at all. I suspect there is something wrong with your temperatures, especially as you mention flash steeping sencha. I can think of no reason for doing this with sencha.LuckyMe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:41 pmI notice pour time affects the flavor of sencha in a couple of situations. One is when I'm pouring back and forth between cups instead of directly into a pitcher or single teacup. Although serving tea in this manner is fun, it naturally prolongs the pour thus bringing out more bitterness.
Another is flash steeping. Sometimes, I'll flash steep using near boiling water for the second cup and an extra 5 or 6 seconds can affect flavor. This is one time when metal strainers do a better job than sasame.
Flash steeping the second cup was recommended by one Japanese vendor for fukamashi. It works with better with some teas than others. Hojo has a similar method for flash brewing sencha.
I don't know what expert recommended using boiling water for a brief steeping of sencha but I have only heard of this in two exceptional cases:
1) An experiment where the hot steep is combined with other, more moderate steeps, to assess all characteristics of the tea.
2) Making zairai, which has so very little bitterness that it can be boiled (!), but it is an exception because it is seed grown and not a propagated vegetative like the cultivars used in 99.99% of sencha.
The process for the second steep is to use the same temp water as the first steep, then pour water into the vessel, oscillate the vessel gently 5 turns, then pour off. Those 5 turns get the leaves off the upper wall of the vessel that were left there from the first steep and also serve as a timing mechanism to tell you when to pour. In fact, if you look at the steps for senchado you will see that many of the steps serve dual duty for cleaning and timing.
fukamushi second steeping has been recommended to me by many Japanese tea shop owners as pour in, pour out. I don't drink fukamushi often but I would never steep longer than that, and always with cooler water. I've never used boiling water for sencha of any kind.
However, I can't argue with anyone's particular enjoyment.
However, I can't argue with anyone's particular enjoyment.
After years of this:
60s, 30s, 90s (70ish first two, 80ish third)
I now do this:
60s, 5s, 10s, 120s (70ish first three, 80ish for the fourth)
I get an extra cup that is just as good as the second. And the fourth is just as good as the previous third.
60s, 30s, 90s (70ish first two, 80ish third)
I now do this:
60s, 5s, 10s, 120s (70ish first three, 80ish for the fourth)
I get an extra cup that is just as good as the second. And the fourth is just as good as the previous third.
Those are similar to my target times but my third strep is considerably longer and I can’t put the kettle down and get back to the kyusu in 5s so that is longer as well.
I’m using 4g/70ml at approximately 60-70°c
My times are approximately:
60s, 20s*, 50s, 80s, 80s**, 120s**
* I’m guessing that second steep is about 20s but it is the time to pour, place the kettle back, and gently oscillate the kyusu 5 times
** if the tea goes this long, usually with temp around 80°c for later steeps.
One thing I would be curious about is whether you preheat your teapot or not with these parameters.
My habit is preheating the teapot, and I have often found the first infusion to lose aromatics at the expense of bitterness with the typical 60s first infusion often recommended, even at temperatures that are not excessive. My reaction has been to go with shorter first infusions (20s-30s) and in some cases lower temperature. My goal is to preserve aromatics, not drive away any hint of bitterness.
Recently, I tried recommended infusion parameters (60s, water temperature on the higher end of what you see recommended for sencha) for one tea I had, but without preheating the teapot. This seemed to make a significant (positive) difference. I have not yet tried this with other teas, but I will.
Anyway, it seems to me that preheating the teapot might have a very significant impact on the first infusion, and is an important parameter to list along with the rest unless there there is a consensus strong enough on the preferred method that makes it implicit and that newbie-me does not know about yet.
My habit is preheating the teapot, and I have often found the first infusion to lose aromatics at the expense of bitterness with the typical 60s first infusion often recommended, even at temperatures that are not excessive. My reaction has been to go with shorter first infusions (20s-30s) and in some cases lower temperature. My goal is to preserve aromatics, not drive away any hint of bitterness.
Recently, I tried recommended infusion parameters (60s, water temperature on the higher end of what you see recommended for sencha) for one tea I had, but without preheating the teapot. This seemed to make a significant (positive) difference. I have not yet tried this with other teas, but I will.
Anyway, it seems to me that preheating the teapot might have a very significant impact on the first infusion, and is an important parameter to list along with the rest unless there there is a consensus strong enough on the preferred method that makes it implicit and that newbie-me does not know about yet.
They probably stay around 50°c or more between steeps. I never took the temp of the kyusu between steeps. I'm not hurried about it but neither am I slow. 3-4 min between steeps, if I had to guess. I'll take a temp tomorrow though because I am now curious.
I used to consider sencha the most unforgiving of teas but after 2 years of almost exclusively making sencha but now I feel it is exceptionally forgiving so long as you weigh your leaves. I couldn't guess the difference between 4 and 6 grams by sight and I find the margin for error is too narrow to just guess leaf weight.
For sencha, I usually use a kettle that turns off when the kettle is lifted off the base. I do not reheat before the 2nd infusion unless the temp drops way down (140 degrees or less). Usually it's 170° first, 155-165° second. I reheat the kettle for the 3rd.
It is common for people to increase the temperature for later steeps, which is sometimes referred to as a way to "extract more". I would be curious to measure the actual temperature of the water after it has been poured for each infusion, and see how quickly it drops at the beginning. The first infusion may have a cooler teapot to fight against, but dry leaves have very little thermal inertia. Maybe the actual water temperature in the pot (as opposed to temperature in the kettle before pouring) ends up being quite similar for all steeps past the initial rapid drop in temperature.
I’ll take some notes using an IR thermometer. I have a hunch you are correct.faj wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:09 pmIt is common for people to increase the temperature for later steeps, which is sometimes referred to as a way to "extract more". I would be curious to measure the actual temperature of the water after it has been poured for each infusion, and see how quickly it drops at the beginning. The first infusion may have a cooler teapot to fight against, but dry leaves have very little thermal inertia. Maybe the actual water temperature in the pot (as opposed to temperature in the kettle before pouring) ends up being quite similar for all steeps past the initial rapid drop in temperature.
Regardless of why, it works for me. Also, this is essentially the way Florent, of Thés du Japon, does it.
Florent also wrote about using off the boil water to brew sencha in his blog:
https://japaneseteasommelier.wordpress. ... a-brewing/II. Experiments with boiling water
Now I would like to present some methods of infusions that are not basics method. These are very interesting extremes method with boiling water which break some ideas about sencha.
95 °C / 100 ml / 1 g / 3 min
This is the “very few leaves” pattern, compensated by very hot water and a very long time to brew.
The result is amazing, very light but not tasteless liquor, with a kind of deepness. It is a very refreshing tea, and easy to drink.
95 °C / 40 ml / 3 g / 5-10 s
Here, we are more adventurous, very few boiling water, for a short steeping time ! Result: First, an amazing sweet fragrance. Then the liquor is quite strong, but well-balanced and remains again very easy to drink.
That backs up my own experiences, if the quality is good enough very hot water and something closer to gong fu way of brewing can result in a very enjoyable brew. And that goes for Sencha and even Gyokuru! Caveat: for me that worked only with organic and single origin teas.