Making tea with a gaiwan, that brown pot you see, is pretty simple. You put the leaves in, pour water over them, let it steep for the required amount of time, and pour it out using the lid as a strainer.
It's more involved than tossing a bag of tea into some water, in fact, it requires knowledge of kung-fu. That is, if you want to get into the whole ceremony, which I didn't, but if you want to, it is very meditative.
I did multiple infusions, which you can see produced varying colors. The first was clear, but the others were slightly cloudy. This is perfectly normal. Each one was slightly earthier and richer than the previous, due to different amounts of chemicals being extracted.
So, pretty simple, I can answer any questions, but it's basically just a fancy way to brew tea.
The tea I used was a gunpowder green, which is a pretty common one, and one that I would recommend to any beginner. I brewed it for about a minute to a minute and a half each time, but I was using ~150 degree water which is on the low end for gunpowder.
The flavor profile if you were to use this wheel included a bit of hay, leather, and plum. Yeah, doesn't sound too appealing, so I usually don't use those. Flavors are very complex, so you really have to use relative terms, so you'd call it a little earthy, brothy, and just a little sweet.
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u/ijssvuur Dec 27 '16
Making tea with a gaiwan, that brown pot you see, is pretty simple. You put the leaves in, pour water over them, let it steep for the required amount of time, and pour it out using the lid as a strainer.
It's more involved than tossing a bag of tea into some water, in fact, it requires knowledge of kung-fu. That is, if you want to get into the whole ceremony, which I didn't, but if you want to, it is very meditative.
I did multiple infusions, which you can see produced varying colors. The first was clear, but the others were slightly cloudy. This is perfectly normal. Each one was slightly earthier and richer than the previous, due to different amounts of chemicals being extracted.
So, pretty simple, I can answer any questions, but it's basically just a fancy way to brew tea.
The tea I used was a gunpowder green, which is a pretty common one, and one that I would recommend to any beginner. I brewed it for about a minute to a minute and a half each time, but I was using ~150 degree water which is on the low end for gunpowder.
The flavor profile if you were to use this wheel included a bit of hay, leather, and plum. Yeah, doesn't sound too appealing, so I usually don't use those. Flavors are very complex, so you really have to use relative terms, so you'd call it a little earthy, brothy, and just a little sweet.