You mention resteeping the tea, getting like 12 uses out of it. Would you have to do all this in one day or is there a proper way to store it until you're ready to use it again?
How I drink my pu-erh..... (Quick and Easy Method)
- Thread starter joel
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I have looking for the answer ot this too. I have read on line about some people using the same tea for a few days but no says what they do with it. Do you leave it in the pot, put it in the fridge, take it out of the pot....???
Usually I don't start a session unless I have two hours free. A whole session (until the tea leaves are exhausted) can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 days. If a tea lasts longer than a few hours, and I need to continue it on the next day, I'll pour water just off boil into the pot or gaiwan, and let it sit overnight. The next day, I'll pour out the tea, drink it, rinse the leaves with water just off boil, then go back to brewing it normal.
eh, i'm lazy, i just leave it in the pot, lmao. make sure to check for mold growth b4 you drink again though
OK, sorry about bumping an old thread, but I can't let this go unanswered.
You almost always use all the infusions at once (if you're drinking at your desk or something, you might spread them out over the course of a morning or a day). Leaving tea wet overnight is kind of like making a compost heap in your teapot (and it gets kinda disgusting after a while, trust me
), and supposedly (according to Chow & Kramer's _All the Tea in China_) there've been Chinese studies claiming that there could be health risks (even cancer, IIRC) associated with doing that.Typically, you can only get 12+ infusions out of a really high-grade tea brewed in a Gongfu (Chinese tea ceremony) way--storing that overnight would be like not rinsing off your $150 silvertip brush because you hadn't used all the cream on it
. Any Chinese tea should get at least 3 infusions--normal-ish expectations for everyday tea would be about 3 for greens & 4-6 for oolongs and pu-erhs. However, really nice oolongs and pu-erhs can last 20+ infusions sometimes.I should point out that, while aged cakes of raw pu-erh can cost as much as a car or a house, you can get a cake (usually ~350-400g) of good, everyday ripe pu-erh for $30 or less, making it one of the cheapest, most reliable, and (possibly) healthiest indulgences out there. (And no, I'm not in the tea business ;-).) Even if the health benefits are overstated, it's definitely one of the best comfort foods I've found, up there with mac & cheese and peanut butter & jelly.
OK, sorry about bumping an old thread, but I can't let this go unanswered.
You almost always use all the infusions at once (if you're drinking at your desk or something, you might spread them out over the course of a morning or a day). Leaving tea wet overnight is kind of like making a compost heap in your teapot (and it gets kinda disgusting after a while, trust me
Do you have links to such studies? These are pretty big claims, and I may not be a bio-chemical engineer but I find this hard to believe.
Nope--as I say, they were Chinese studies I found in the back of a twenty-year-old book. I'll check the bibliography when I get home to see if Chow & Kramer cite the source in any useful way.
I'd normally dismiss this sort of thing out of hand, but I'm tempted to lend it some credence because it seems unusual for a PRC-sanctioned study to turn up anything negative about tea (since Chinese tea is sort of tied into Chinese national identity--the PRC once considered Pu-erh so significant that the method of its making was considered a state secret). Anyhow, even if it's completely false, keeping wet leaves around to resteep is a bit disgusting (again, think composting), and drinking actively decomposing leaves can't be good for you.
