Need pu-erh brewing tips
I was given some pu-erh tea and I need brewing tips. It’s a chunk off a big disk. From 2013. Brews into a reddish liquor. Not sure if it’s sheng or shou.
Should I crumble up the leaves before steeping? Or, just let them fall apart over multiple infusions?
I was told 1g tea per 10 mL water, so I’ve been brewing 15g in a 150 mL glass teapot. I don’t have a yixing teapot, unfortunately. 208 F water for 60 seconds. I also did a 15 second initial rinse.
Any tips?
Sounds shou.
10ml or 15ml work, depends on the tea really. You don’t need to crumble the tea, the rinse and steeps will open.
The rinse is a little long. It is pretty much a flash rinse, so you immediately dump out the water. You can try doing 2 quick rinses on shou. Your first infusion is really long too, I do flash to 15 seconds for the first few infusions. From there I add time. 60 seconds I get around the 7th infusion mark or so.
You don’t need a yixing, but you’ll probably want a smaller pot so you can use less tea and less to drink through, which adds up the longer the tea resteeps. I am not a fan of glass tea pots, especially for boiling teas. Glass loses too much heat, so you’ll get less out of the tea. I’d get a gaiwan, 100 to 120ml
I find a 75 ml gaiwan with 4-5 grams of tea brewed about 10-15 times. Traditionally you arent supposed to do this, but you can pool the tea, pour the first and second infusion together into another pot and so on down the line. Dont do this when you are doing tastings, but for relaxed casual drinking I think its fine and saves on tea.
Glass is great for greens.. and acceptable for Indian black tea, but yeah avoid it for Puerh and Oolong.
The water temp sounds good, 205-212 is best. Also with a caked ripe puerh, around the 3rd of fourth infusion, the tea should essentially explode.. just blast out color and come apart.
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