Bowl Brewing aka Grandpa Style

I have written several times about bowl brewing my teas.  While it is just about as easy as it sounds, it is not quite that easy.  I have found some teas are more finicky than others.   As such I have refined my bowl brewing a little beyond just adding leaves and filling up the bowl with hot water, as depending on the tea that could work or it could end up a bitter mess.  I made a video of today's grandpa style brew to illustrate this.  There is more to my thought processes after the video.

The main difference is a do a "steeping" of sorts geared to establish the root.  My thought processes behind this is, if the tea is on the delicate side, suddenly sitting in a big bowl of fresh off boiling water could do horrible things to the brew.  While an initial 1/3rd fill then letting it sit cool off a bit and steep, shouldn't shock the leaves too much.  Plus the water is cooler so it helps mediate the temperature when you completely fill up the bowl.

Also I mentioned the root, this 1/3rd fill level is a great mental level to keep in your mind when drinking, as you should refill with fresh boiling water each time it hits this 1/3rd level until you want to finish.  A slight added bonus with this initial steeping is it helps resolve the issue of floating leaves.  (It is not fool proof but it helps.)

Less is More

 

Before I get skinned alive by the high fire Yancha and TGY crowd that love to turn 60ml or smaller pots into veritable clown cars by packing in 10 or more grams of tea.  I am not talking about that.  I am actually talking about other teas, especially when brewing them Grandpa style.

For some reason in the tea world, and perhaps even the coffee world, its not uncommon to want to push the limits when brewing.  As such, more and more leaf/ bean gets added trying to get something so incredibly flavor packed and delicious.  Well I have found that when brewing Grandpa style, that I have been adding more and more and more leaves.  On a few bad occasions ( often with more dense dry leaves), after they got wet the would be nearly up to the top of the bowl when swimming in water.  Not only when brewing Grandpa style can that produce something akin to battery acid, but you actually get more of the battery acid effect because it is rather hard to sip effectively when there are that many leaves.

So I am making a very conscious effort to use three-quarters, if not half the leaves I would normally use.  So far it has been working to great effect.  The flavor is more subtle, but it is often far more enjoyable.  It may lead me to re-evaluate certain other brewing procedures I have for various teas to find out where I can actually improve by cutting back.

This may sound crazy...

Regular readers of this blog know that sometimes when getting work done I enjoy brewing tea "Grandpa style."  Having a decent bit of work to be done this spring break, I have been craving to brew Grandpa style, the problem though, the only leafy teas I have on hand are sencha.  Sencha by nature as usually slightly more delicate than Chinese and Korean greens, often even in the top/ middle of the bags includes a higher portion of small leaf bits, Sencha has long since been considered by me as a tea that should just not be used for Grandpa style.

Though I did have a friend in the past tell me he has successfully brewed sencha Grandpa style, although gave no detailed instructions as how to accomplish this task.  I have found a process that seems to work, and it breaks ever so slightly from normal Grandpa Style brewing.  First off, I still only think this should only be attempted with Asamushi Sencha, the lighter steamed the better.

Step one with water that has just boiled, and given a chance to go just off boil, fill the bowl just enough to cover the leaves, and let it sit for a while ( bowl should be at room temp and not preheated).  You should wait for that too cool slightly, which will usually happen once the sencha leaves  expand and soak up the water so it looks more like wet grass clippings on the very bottom of the bowl. (30seconds - 1 minute)




Step Two as is more typical with Grandpa style, add water from the kettle to fill the bowl/ Chawan 1/3rd of the way.  This and the last step are to establish a solid root, but also to not stew the leaves but expose them to enough water and heat that when the chawan is filled to 2/3rds or 70% of the way the sencha leaves will settle to the bottom, allowing you to drink from the top with ease.  You will want to allow the leaves to sit in this 1/3rd bowl full of water till there is very little steam rising and the bowl is warm but not hot to the touch.



Step Three feel free to top off the bowl, and when it cools to drinking temperature drink, down to the 1/3rd full.  Repeat until you are tired of the tea, or you feel it has lost all flavor.



A picture showing that I am enjoying Matcha Maddess this march, in a lovely new Chawan.

How I brew "Grandpa" Style

If you read enough tea blogs surely you have heard the term Grandpa style in regards to brewing tea. In my understanding it is named after the method you see many older people use to drink tea in China. This method basically consists of a bowl/cup/glass leaves and a supply of hot water. Its a great way to drink for an extended length of time with minimal effort, as you drink down to a certain level and refill with hot water, in a "never ending cup of tea" situation.

Honestly depending on the tea I brew grandpa style slightly differently. But the end goal the same is, to have as many leaves as possible on the bottom of the drinking vessel to allow for easy sipping, while establishing a strong root. The trick to getting the leaves to stay on the bottom of the cup/bowl is actually very hot or near boiling water, which depending on the type of tea sounds like it could be a bit scary. But I take this as a chance to establish a strong root, while also getting the leaves to be settled along the bottom.

Once the kettle is boiling and the leaves are in the bottom of the bowl, I pour the boiling water into the bowl, and how high depends on the tea. The more delicate the tea is, (read the greener the tea), the less I fill the bowl with the near boiling water.

If its a highly delicate and very green tea, I aim to just cover the leaves with the very hot water, and then let it sit for quite a while, and start cooling the water I would add to top it off. I do this because for some reason the hotter the water the leaves sit in the more likely they are to settle, but the greener the tea the more easily it tends to settle. I am also establishing a root, but the low amount of water allows it to cool before overly cooking the leaves. Once the water to add is cool enough I top off the bowl, and start drinking. I drink down to 1/3 the level or so and then top off with warmer water.

If the tea is darker i.e Hong Cha or Yancha, I follow roughly the same steps as above, except upon first filling the bowl instead of just covering the leaves, I fill the bowl half way or slightly more. This is because for some reason the darker the leaves, and more so with Yancha the less likely they are to settle from just this step. The water constantly used to top off the bowl is also always near boiling, but I still only drink down to roughly a third of total volume before refilling.

It is a great way to slowly enjoy a large cup of tea, but I should caution while similar flavor waves come through brewing grandpa style vs brewing in a teapot or gaiwan, the flavor when brewed Grandpa style tends to go quicker, providing the first few "infusions" with strong robust brews compared to when brewed with a teapot.

A bit more history on the term Grandpa style, I believe the term was coined by MarsalN of A Tea Addicts Journal. I have also arrived at this method through experimenting, and talking with those more experienced such as MarshalN about how to best carry out this method.