Gong Ting Again

This will be very brief. I brewed more Gong Ting today. I intended to get some very good pictures of the leaves and color of the tea. The vendor's site describes this puerh as "the smallest (and most expensive) grade of fermented Pu-erh," and it makes me wonder if the 'smallest' refers to the leaves used. Indeed, the leaves are very small and fragile. In fact, after brewing they look like stems, still curled tightly. When I attempted opening a leaf or two, they simply fell apart in my fingers. So taking a picture for the sake of comprehension, I feel, is out of the question. Unless over-brewing will make the leaves turn too soft?

I broke off a nice 5+ gram piece this time, and put that into my pot. The first infusion (after the rinses, of course) was much lighter than subsequent steeps, but it was full of flavor. The second infusion was quite dark, though.



I was watching a movie at the time, tentatively, so I just kept going until the tea was well past finished and I was well past full of tea! As you can see with the final four infusions, side by side, there is a noticeable difference even with very long steeps. I had stopped timing them long before.





So that's my 2005 Gong Ting story.