Teapot Brewing. To gongfu or not?

Ive been satisfying an itch recently of indulging in more non-gongfu sessions. I have a 200ml pot and have been essentially struggling between what more western parameters would yield (5 grams of tea, boiling, starting with 30 second to a minute steeps) and just doing gongfu in them (my parameters would make that 14 grams, boiling, quick steeps). And this is for puerh, young and old. Is it pointless to do the latter?

Essentially for anyone who is a pot brewer as well as gaiwan brewer how do you fit your larger than 1 person pot into your life.

2 Replies
Dr Jim said

I always do gong-fu for puerh, but for oolong I often do what I call “modified gong-fu”: which is about 3 grams of tea for 5 oz water and 1 minute steeps. This is opposed to Western style, which would be 1.5 grams and 3 minutes in the same pot.

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Kind of a different subject, but I was surprised to hear of common use of grandpa style brewing for pu’er in a recent FB tea group discussion. That’s more or less on the far side of Western style parameters, using a small amount of tea per water amount (so a lower proportion), and then never removing the tea from the water, just drinking it while still in the water. It has no relation to brewing methodology using a 200 ml pot, just adding that since it’s vaguely related.

I tend to use brewing variations in between standard Western and Gongfu parameters, but most recently, over the last half a year, I’m just going with a Gongfu approach instead. Sometimes teas actually do turn out better brewed Western style than using a higher proportion and lower times, but per my experience it’s not necessarily as clear as breaking the process used down by general type, eg. Gongfu for pu’er or most oolong, Western for black or most white. For pu’er I do tend to stick to short steeps in the Gongfu proportion though; I don’t vary that. I tried preparing it grandpa style, based on that discussion input, but didn’t prefer it made that way.

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