There are teas that reward many steeps. And, for me, there are teas
that only get interesting *after* many steeps. Chief among these, I
find, are many - most! - cooked Pu'ers and border teas (Lubiancha.) I
usually find them kind of muddy and afflicted by off notes, for seven,
eight, or nine steeps. Then, around the time when the liquor loses
its opacity, a corresponding transparency comes over the taste, often
with a delightful sweetness reminiscent of dried fruit.

I often wonder how it might be possible to change my brewing protocol
to reach the taste I prefer more quickly. Obviously, I could just
discard the early steeps, but that seems wasteful, and besides, I like
caffeine as much as the next guy. I suppose I could also lengthen the
early steeps, but I think that would make them worse than they already
are. (I use a lot of leaf, and quite short steeps early on.)

Any ideas?

/Lew

On Feb 14, 4:34 pm, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

Sounds like you just need to use less leaves Lew!

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

Lewis Perin wrote:

MarshalN gmail.com> writes:

On Feb 15, 2:34 am, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

MarshalN gmail.com> writes:

OK, here are some notes from tastings I did recently using a sample
kindly sent me by someone who's been known to lurk here. (Thanks!)

I should say a few things first. Steep times are in seconds. BLA =
brewed leaf aroma. SBF = similar but fainter. All steeps were in a
4-oz. gaiwan. "Preheated" means that as soon as the previous steep
was poured off, the new steep began with boiling water, i.e. the
gaiwan was preheated.

What isn't obvious is that my normal brewing parameters, the ones I
was trying to improve upon, are not represented here. I've been in
the habit of using 7g of leaf (like the first setup below) with a lot
of very quick steeps at first (like the last one below.)

OK, here are the notes:

* 2007 Boyou Xian Ting Zhi Xing shu from '05 leaves

** boiling/7g/4 oz/double rinse,5,30,30,60,preheated 90,120,180,300,450,600,900,1200

BLA burnt caramel and mulch. Cup aroma similar but more integrated.
Taste very nice, burnt caramel with matching bitterness and good
houyun from the first steep, which is unusual. 2: Aroma more...

On Feb 27, 3:16 pm, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote: