A Tea Addict's Journal

Midnight tea

April 22, 2009 · 4 Comments

Salsero on Teachat gave me some tea recently, two greens, to be precise (and one darjeeling). I drink greens fairly casually. My family, being from the Shanghai region, mostly drink green teas, usually longjing or biluochun. My grandfather drinks nothing but tea all day. My first tea revelation was a high grade longjing, showing me how not all teas are created equal, and starting me down this very slippery slope on which I’m still sliding, head first, into the abyss….

Anyway, back to the point…

The tea I ended up making today is Yangyan Gouqing, a Zhejiang green that’s slightly rolled. I made it the old-fashioined way, in a gaiwan and sipping from time to time, with no parameters to speak of.

It’s mostly one bud two leaves. Very sweet, somewhat aromatic, and pretty good for the price. Steeped too long and it gets a little rough, but that’s because I used a generous amount of leaves. Some might say I’m wasting good green tea, but that’s how 99% of people drink green tea, steeped grandpa style in a cup or mug or bottle, and I don’t pretend to be any different from them. I rarely drink greens these days, but doing this takes me back to when I used to drink more of them, sampling all kinds of longjing to find out which one’s better. These days I probably don’t even get through 100g of green in a year.

Thanks Sal.

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4 responses so far ↓

  • Anonymous // April 22, 2009 at 3:13 am | Reply

    My Lao friend drinks her tea grandpa style. When we first started trying new teas together, the newb vs. traditionalist argument that ensued was almost achingly embarrassing, now that I think of it. I did get some measure of vindication when she tried to grandpa sencha.

  • Anonymous // April 22, 2009 at 8:50 pm | Reply

    Ha! grandpa-ing sencha! I would have liked to have seen that 🙂
    I made my first sencha in a gaiwan, and it didn’t work. At all. All the leaf poured out with the tea. And, when I put a strainer over the ocean, it so much leaf came out that it clogged the strainer.

    Then I quit drinking sencha until I got a kyusu; now I’m all set.
    But anyway… Just when you think you can wield your mighty gaiwan on all teas, you meet sencha. Or a cooked puerh tuo cha that completely disintegrates into dust when it comes in contact with water.

    Fun times with tea, for sure.

  • mulcahyfeldman // April 26, 2009 at 3:21 pm | Reply

    Since I drink green 75 percent of the time, I loved this post. The tea makes my mouth water. Great photo. eileen

  • Von Monstro // October 14, 2014 at 9:58 pm | Reply

    I know I’m bringing back a post from the dead, but how big in terms of volume to the rim would you estimate that gaiwan to be? I’ve been wanting something like it, too.

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