Cold brewing

I have a summer cold.

No proper sense of smell, yet I want to experience a nice cup of tea, preferably something smooth and sweet, even mellow. I could have gone with a soupy, lush fukamushi (deeply steamed) sencha, but it did not feel quite right. I would not have minded a nice Bi Lu Chun, but am out of that. I have some high quality light oolong, but it would have been wasted without functioning olfactory input.

The conundrum dissolved as I remembered a tea which I mentioned in my last post; the Light roast Da Hong Pao. The reason I like this tea so much is its range. (Also, punnily enough, its price range -- but enough of that!)

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/product.php?id_product=851

I like contradictions, or at least contrast, resulting in self-emphasising complexity. In flavour-experiences I look for either that or (meta-consequently) its sort-of-opposite: elegantly sublime, discrete flavours (as in good Japanese or Scandinavian food); nothing hidden or overpowered, everything nakedly honest.

For the first style of food or drink, a pleasant sub-quality is when different characteristics can be brought forth into prominence depending on handling or presentation; such is the case with this tea. Now, this is not the most elegant, most aromatically potent or beautifully flavoured oolong, or even type of oolong tea. But it is versatile, and for that I love it -- it is fun to brew!

Today I do not care about aroma at all, but will focus on making the cup as round and sweet as possible. To achieve this, I brew the tea similarly to how one might a Chinese green; low temperature and long time.

More specifically, I use the same tea-gear as for the Bai Hao (last post) and 3g of leaves. I brew them three times, at descending temperatures; 70°C for 2 min, 65°C for 3min and 60°C for 3min 30s, respectively.

2nd infusion.

In hindsight, I could likely have used even less leaves, and possibly a glass or porcelain gaiwan would have done a better job (I use this pot predominantly for Bai Hao oolong, and it affects the result). Nonetheless, the effect I was looking for was achieved to some degree. Rather than a robust, roasted flavour profile, with tobacco, malt and some flowery fragrance, I get a honeyed, leather and sequoia bark feel, and a hint of lychee. A very pleasant tea session.

On the other end of the reversed temperature spectrum (i.e. brewing the cool warmly) can be found sencha. I learned this neat method from my good friend and tea-aficionado Per Brekell. 

For this, the sencha should be of as high quality as possible and not deep steamed (both for the same reason; you want no leaf fragments for this) -- perhaps an uji or yame asamushi (lightly steamed). Normally, brewing sencha is made difficult because you want to extract as much flavour and aroma as possible without making the brew bitter or astringent. For most sencha, this is best done at about 70 to 75°C. Using quite a large amount of leaves, very short brewing time, and raising the temperature to about  85°C, one accepts a certain amount of astringency, if not bitterness, but in return one might achieve a veritable explosion of aroma. 

In short: a good tea might offer more than one type of experience -- and unlocking this potential is both approachable and pleasing.