An extended episode that shows James brewing a light traditionally stored 2003 Brown Changtai in both grandpa style and gong-fu style brewing.
Relevant: http://www.marshaln.com/whats-grandpa-style/
Tea is provided courtesy of Toby (https://www.instagram.com/toby8653/) and Emilio (https://www.instagram.com/thejadeleaf/).
Thanks for this interesting episode I’ve read that article from Marshaln some time ago and put it into practice this year. The reason being I got tired of the badly brewed tea that I could get my workplace. When using grandpa style I’ve had some cups that got bitter because I steeped them for to long or had to much leaf added in. But overall it works great when I’m working and you get to taste your tea in a different way or can get rid of a tea you do not enjoy so much.
I would say watch out with how much leaf you are using but then again it will be better than tea bags or even worse the instant tea powder they used at a place I’ve worked. I use a tea flask which has a filter build in so I do not have to strain the leaves I just have to put in some tea then screw on the filter and fill it up with water and enjoy it.
Most of the tea’s I’ve tried this way went okay but I would advice against using Japanese green tea because the leaves are very small broken bits and they will fill up your filter resulting in a big mess when pouring. Heicha green tea is a good choice for me because I can repeat it so many times.
Thanks James!
I love drinking grandpa style for two reasons: 1) as James said, it is very convenient during a busy work day, although I do have a gong fu set in my office, and 2) sometimes I just want to slowly sip a hot mug of tea. I usually drink young sheng.
I don’t continue to refill the mug with water like most people. I tend to use 1.6 g of tea with 8 oz of water the first cup. Next cup, I’ll add another .8 g of tea before pouring water. For the third cup, I’ll add .7 g, and if there is a fourth cup, I’ll add .6 g. Some of my guests like it stronger, so I might put 1.8 g in their mug to begin with.
I find thermos use is different since the water temperature does not dissipate like a mug, so you are getting 100% of the tea materials absorbed into the water as it sits boiling hot water for several hours. Hence, for a 16 oz thermos, I will only use 2.0 to 2.2 grams of leaves. This thermos (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JFB2RA6/) keeps the water crazy hot all day if I fill it with hot water to warm it up before actually putting in the tea and boiling water. This is what I use if I’m going to be out of the office all day at meetings.
I used to grandpa style a lot of greens and oolongs at work. Typically, you don’t want to use boiling water for those when grandpa styling, just below boiling works fine. The floating leaves is something I noticed, some would always float! Two methods I devised to get rid of this were 1) gently blowing near the leaves, causing a sort of turbulence that would saturate them and make them drop and 2) “mashing” the leaves against the side of the cup with my lips and then drinking from the opposite side.
Brainstormed weird Pu’erh topics ideas, since you asked:
– Iced Pu
– Pu’s you’ve added sugar to.
– Things you do with ‘bad’ pu other than throw out.
– FuZhuan, golden flowers info (close enough to pu, right?)
– Might be interesting to put your tasting notes about regions onto a map. Like “I feel like Menghai is blah blah” and point to it and kinda go through like that. Compare elevation, local weather, etc. Maybe with storage too?
White / Green:
– Mao Cha (is it still that?) versus Caked White teas, same material. (maybe you’ve done this, sorry)
– Why are there no green cakes? (I hear aged green is bad, so that?)
– Affects of aging on green. (I have old green tea, over 10 years, sealed and recently opened it up. Odd fruity flavor, not good, not bad. Chinese writing I can’t read, so maybe fruit flavor infused… made me curious about green aging as it is never talked about.)
– I’ve always found Japanese green tea (and Japanese tea, in general) hard to get into, but would like to. Maybe some of those.
I’ve also found that microwaving a cup of water creates lots of bubbles which cling to the leaves and floats them to the top. Hence, I always try to use a kettle for grandpa style.
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