A Tea Addict's Journal

Thursday September 21, 2006

September 21, 2006 · 4 Comments

I did the rougui experiment today, and it was a resounding success.

I tried brewing the same rougui with my gaiwan today, to test whether or not there is any difference in how the pot affects the taste, especially with regards to the lack of aroma in my initial tasting with my pot. So…. I brewed it up, and right away, I could see a difference in the liquor. The liquor came out darker, and the taste was much more explosive with aromas and all the tastes that I found when trying the tea at Lao He’s place, but was lacking when i used the pot to brew it.

I might’ve added slightly more leaves as a proportion of the brewing vessel, but it was a small difference, I think, when compared with the results.

Does this mean that my pot is still soaking up the tea’s flavours, and thus leaving me with a lot less to drink? Maybe. I am putting a good amount of excess tea in the pot today (wash plus some of the leftovers from each infusion), just to feed it. My hope is that over time, it will start giving instead of just soaking (as they’re supposed to do). I’ve heard this theory first at the Best Tea House while chatting with more experienced tea friends who loiter there. I was initially very skeptical as to whether a pot can really soak up the flavours that much, but this experiment definitely nudged me towards thinking there is something to that theory after all.

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4 responses so far ↓

  • Phyllo // September 21, 2006 at 2:25 pm | Reply

    Interesting!  I didn’t know that a new pot could soak in so much of the tea’s flavor that it makes the resulting brew with less flavor.

  • MarshalN // September 22, 2006 at 12:30 am | Reply

    Yes, I was surprised too. But when I first tasted it with the pot, I was thinking to myself “what happened to this tea???”. Everything was so subtle… I couldn’t taste the tea at all. It was about 70% tea leaves, and I made sure I shook it so that it settled, so it wasn’t the lack of leaves.

    Then when I tried this… wow.

    We’ll see how the pot develops.

  • Estif // September 22, 2006 at 5:29 pm | Reply

    So, does this then mean that I should only use cheap stuff in a yixing until my pots are well-seasoned? And how does one know when that is?

    Steven

  • MarshalN // September 23, 2006 at 1:01 am | Reply

    I’m not sure. I think what some do is they use gaiwan to brew the good stuff first, but pour the wash and maybe little bits into the pot to season it.

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