Brewing methods

To be honest with you, as much as I know everyone says gong fu is the “better” way to prepare tea, I’m right with you; I don’t have the time to go through all the infusions of a session, and usually feel uncomfortably “water heavy” from that much tea, so my preference is to brew western style, even if it is considered more “crude” or “wrong” by the “high-class tea-drinkers”. I also like seeing the difference or the flavors that can be brought out in gong fu, but I just don’t have the time in my schedule, I can’t drink gong fu style at all with my work setup, after work I can only drink herbal tea, so that pretty much leaves weekends and by then it usually feels like more of a hassle than relaxing, and I rarely want as much tea as it produces.

My only guess would be to do a gong fu setup where you take a sip/small sample from each infusion to get the different flavors/note the changes but don’t drink the full infusion and instead “stack” them all into a single cup? Once the infusions are stacked, however, the taste is going to be pretty much how it would be if you had produced it western style from the start, I’d imagine…

Sure, you can compound all of the infusions into one mug and drink them together. I do this all the time and with some teas like TGY, the combined steeps sometimes taste better. It can also be faster than western steeping.

I like to use a small teapot, usually my 65ml mini kyusu or 80ml gaiwan, and pour each steep directly into the cup. About 5-6 steeps are enough to fill a regular American mug or 10 oz tea tumbler.

When I brew gong fu style I will also keep a mug for the extra, but recently I’ve started using a quart jar and then cooling it in the refrigerator. When the tea has had good body hot/fresh I have liked it when drunk cold. So if you save the excess when you do have time for gong fu, you could still drink it later. (I don’t reheat tea, but perhaps that could work?)

Also, I do more or less a hybrid Western/gong fu steep of green/white/yellow teas most mornings. I’ll use 5-10 g for 500 mL of water, and have a first steep for a minute at 60 °C or so. A second steep – which may be the next day! – will be at 5 or 10 degrees higher. Some teas will still be good for a third or fourth steep, increasing temperature or time each time.

The details are not particularly important and it makes sense to experiment to get what you want. For some tea 60 °C is too low to get anything, for others even at low temperatures 30 seconds is enough to get a flavorful liquor.

It’s not going to be the same as a gong fu approach, but it takes far less time. I’m not going to do this with my favorite teas, but average teas (where gong fu won’t necessarily even bring out that much) can still be nice like this.

I drink a lot of greens and I find greens usually are better brewed western or grandpa style. I am not interested in all the variations of flavour for a green. I like the BEST and the BEST is usually the first and second infusions. If I find I don’t like a green tea brewed western or grandpa, I’ll try gongfu. You never know so you have to try out each method to see what works for you.

As for other teas types I mostly do gongfu (with blacks and whites being a mix of western or gongfu). I never make it past 8 or 9 infusions with pu’erh. That’s just too much tea for me so I will take a few sips on each infusion. If I don’t like, I throw out and go on to the next one until I hit an infusion I like. Then I Know next time on which infusion to start drinking.

I also try to minimize dishes when brewing gongfu. I make my cup the same size as the brewing vessel. That way I eliminate the pouring vessel. It’s just easier. I really hate all the dishes.

Usually for a 200 ml cup, 3-4 grams of tea leaves is ok. In the first infusion, put the boiling water of 1/3 cup. After that, pour boiling water to the 7/10 or 8/10 cup.
Proportion of tea and water relates to tea category. Concerning the very fluffy tea, such as Pekoe Oolong, Biluochun a 7/10 or 8/10 cup of water is suitable. For the little tight tea, a 1/4 pot of water is satisfying, such as the bunched Oolong tea, White Pekoe Silver Needle in the form of bar, thin and fluffy green tea and so on. A 1/5 pot of water is best as to the extremely dense tea, like the sword- shaped Longjing, the needle-like Kungfu black tea, Yulu tea, the spherical gunpowder tea, the angular broken tea, and the scenting scented tea. The tea dosage varies. For regular tea drinkers or manual workers, it is generally to increase the amount of tea leaves and to make a cup of strong tea.

2. Mastery of infusion time

To make a variety of tea extracts in proper proportion in liquid with good color and taste, the first infusion is standardized to be 5 minutes for 3 grams tea leaves (6 minutes for Tie Kwan- yin and heavily-fermented

Three infusions are normally recommended for green tea, black tea, and scented tea. Oolong tea can be brewed 4 to 6 times continuously to take full advantage of the active ingredients. Only one infusion is good for broken tea, White Pekoe Silver Needle, and Junshan Silver Needle.
In addition, bagged tea is usually the tea powder of black tea, green tea, scented tea or Pu’er tea, which is easy to extract and only one infusion is enough.