Ti Kuan Yin

Ahh, the growling bubbles in the electric kettle. It's a sound I'm fast growing to love. Of course, part of the reason is that it's time for tea again! It doesn't matter what kind or how it's brewed, of course. Each tea has its own requirements, and is quite versatile. Western brewing with a strong black or infusing some Rooibos, a steep in a small ceramic vessel for a little green or white tea, gongfu cha, it's all great.

And this blog is stepping away from stories a bit. I don't know exactly how I was inspired, but my first post is by far my favorite. It tells the story of the steep, in stead of just focusing on the technicalities of the brew. How did I feel? How did I enjoy the tea? A brief description of what I did should suffice, perhaps. I don't know, really. I need to find my own feel for this blog.

But why should I blabber on now when there's tea to talk about?

This is (I think) my second, maybe third, time having this tea. Yes, it's the second. The last (and first) time I brewed some, was after talking to a friend about my newly arrived samples. It was the first time I had mentioned getting loose tea. It turns out she's a fan. She mentioned her uncle, who lives at the opposite end of the continent from her, enjoys Ti Kuan Yin most of all. I saw a tin with that name among my samples, so I dropped it in the ol' infuser and poured boiling water over it. Three minutes later, I was enjoying its interesting flavor (though i didn't yet have enough knowledge to know what to look for in it -- do I yet?).

When the rest of the samples arrived, I was overwhelmed a bit by the variety of samples, so I started just making a circuit among the varieties, leaving the Oolong samples since I did so much enjoy them already! That is until I started this blog. I wanted to start with the other varieties, and have enough left of each that I could revisit them after I got back around to the Oolongs. That didn't happen.

So far, I've used the last of the Wuyi Oolong and the White Peony. I wish I had more of the White Peony, to revisit in a review. And I could swear I've emptied another. But I'll empty plenty more, to be sure!

So tonight, I wanted tea (of course), and nothing seemed quite right. So I reached for the TGY (Tie Kuan Yin is also known as Tie Guan Yin, thus the abbreviation). Five grams into the gaiwan, quick rinse with decant-cooled* water, Then on to the infusions.

Someone in the online community of tea drinkers says that a lower temperature of water than boiling (he specifically said 190ºF) brings out more body and a more pronounced sweetness in TGY than hotter water. Or was it a TGY? Any way, several tea bloggers and reviewers recommend using sub-boiling water for any Oolong. So I decant-cooled the water for the first several infusions, at least.

Dry leaves:


Well, the advice rang true. The first infusion was as flavorful and pleasant as I could ever expect. But the cooler water by the third infusion made a noticeable difference. On to the later infusions, though the flavor was slowly washing out, revealing its deeper subtleties, the sweetness and body became a bit more pronounced -- that is until the water cooled a bit too much. But I was running low any way, so I heated a bit more.

The later infusions benefited from the hotter water, though the hint of sweetness was significantly less pronounced in the first hot-water-again infusion. The color came back, and some of the leading flavor returned. It was well worth it.

At the tenth and final infusion, soothing flavor was still present. However, most of this tea's attributes were barely holding on. Since this was a good bit of water later, any way, it was a good time to quit.

This was time to examine the leaves after the brew. Though I don't know much, making note of observations now will help me know what I am looking for and looking at, later on. The leaves were not nearly as dark as any black tea, of course. Actually, it was still quite green. The leaves carry a hue of brown from the light oxidation and probably a bit of roasting. The edges of the top side were a bit yellow, the same color as most of the veins on the bottom of the leaves.

Surprisingly, though, considering the tightness of the rolled leaves, there were plenty of whole leaves and even leaf pairs with stems!



However, in chat and in other research this afternoon (the chat made me curious) I learned a lot more about TGYs. Another novice to all things tea was in chat, about to have some TGY, and asking some interesting questions.


# zipp - what is the method to get the TGY to have that look at the final process?
# zipp - you know all curly and stuff
# Andy - rolling
# Andy - more so than another oolong
==later, after infusing a few times==
# zipp - .......... and STOP
# Andy - a whole three minutes
# zipp - not long enough?
# Andy - you tell me
# zipp - nope
# zipp - weak
# zipp - lack of flavor
# zipp - but the leaves have much curl still in them
# Andy - that's normal
# Andy - you can exhaust them and they won't unfurl
# zipp - well then that's it I guess

The videos on the Hou De Blog about making Formosa Oolong teas, are also very interesting.

So apparently I got about what I payed for with this tea. It's definitely good, but it seems the higher grade Ti Kuan Yin teas remain a bit more rolled after infusion.

Tea: Ti Kuan Yin from Adagio
5g Tea, 110ml Gaiwan, water decant-cooled
Infusions: 16, 20, 26, 37, 46, 52, 60+ to the tenth







* Decant cooling is the method of pouring too-hot-to-steep water into another vessel to cool the water. The heat from the water is absorbed by the cooler decanting vessel, so the water cools much more quickly than by simply sitting in its original container.