A Tea Addict's Journal

Pot experiment

May 2, 2008 · 3 Comments

No, not that kind of pot.

So I tried to do the “drink the same tea in different pots” bit yesterday and today, especially with a view of trying out the “new” pot with young puerh. My selected victim was my Zhangjiawan puerh

Using the “new” pot first

And then, today, the pot I normally use

Both of the second infusion

And the leaves

Now, I am by no means claiming this to be scientific. After all, I don’t have a scale, I am not measuring carefully the volume to weight ratio. I’m not calibrating the temperature of the water precisely….

But somehow, the “new” pot has things coming out darker and the flavour generally “older”. It added a year or two to the age of the tea, methinks. I don’t know how that happened.

I might’ve put in a little more leaves, which might explain the difference, somewhat. If you look at the wet leaves, the left side is from the “new” pot. I’m sure the fact that it has been sitting around the pot for a day has changed it a bit, or has it? I don’t know for sure. I do remember, however, thinking that the leaves look awfully dark sitting in the pot when I made it yesterday.

So, no conclusions. Just…. lots of questions.

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3 responses so far ↓

  • PuerhShop // May 2, 2008 at 5:37 am | Reply

    I tend to think the leaf made some contribution as well.

    1. For a big leaf cake you sampled, you might think it’s pure from one village, but it could be made by maochas from multiple villages. As you know it’s pretty hard to blend these big leafs – you have to be there to see how those tea workers did it, no equipment, all by hands. They placed maocho into a flat busket, hand-stirred the leafs but scared to break the leafs. So the blend was never done uniformly. Th result is that the different portion of the cake tastes differently.  I suggest you try a big factory stuff, like a 7542, as it was blended much better by chopping up the leaf and using a machine.

    2. The outlayer seemed to be aged better.

    My 2 cents.

    Jim at PuerhShop.com

  • ancientteahorseroad // May 2, 2008 at 9:50 am | Reply

    I like Jim’s advice. However, there does appear to be some demarcation.

  • MarshalN // May 2, 2008 at 3:06 pm | Reply

    Hi Jim,

    Actually, the outer layer was what was used in the second pot (more than the first one anyway) and I found it to be greener, not the other way around…

    I do agree it might have something to do with the leaf, but at the same time, I have found this cake to be pretty consistent.

    I might try this again at some other point.

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