Korean green tea brewing

How it works

Boiled water is poured first into a wide shallow bowl kept for the purpose, where a large surface area and a thin depth drop the temperature quickly and by a fairly repeatable amount. Only then does it go to the pot. Cooling the water in a vessel rather than by waiting has a practical advantage that repays the extra object: the same sequence of pours lands in roughly the same place each time, without a thermometer and without standing over a kettle. Leaf quantity is modest by gongfu standards and the steeps are short, with the pot decanted completely into every cup in turn and then back along the line, so no cup is stronger than another. Several infusions follow, each adjusted rather than repeated. Korean green tea is picked in named grades by the date of the harvest, and the earliest of them is the material this careful treatment is aimed at. TeaHQ describes the practice from the outside, and the descriptions of formal darye vary between schools.

Why choose it

It reaches low water temperatures without equipment and without guesswork, and it gives a sequence of small cups rather than one large one. For anyone who finds green tea bitter and does not want a variable-temperature kettle, the cooling-bowl habit is the cheapest fix available.

Equipment

• Water cooling bowl (sukwoo) — Porcelain or glazed stoneware; sometimes glass
• Porcelain teapot — Glazed porcelain
• Yunomi (Japanese teacup) — Glazed stoneware or porcelain; sometimes double-walled glass

Tea types it suits

Recorded on the method rather than inferred from the catalogue. A type missing here is not ruled out; it simply has not been written down.

• Green tea

Common problems

• Pouring straight from the kettle, which skips the one step the method is built around
• Leaving liquor in the pot between infusions, so the next steep begins over-extracted
• Filling each cup in turn to the top, which makes the first cup weaker than the last
• Treating the formal etiquette and the everyday brewing as the same thing

Diagnosed problems

Written from the symptom, with the likely causes in order and a question to rule each one out.

• My green tea tastes bitter — The cup is sharp and unpleasant, sometimes with a drying, mouth-puckering quality alongside the bitterness.
• My second infusion is much worse than the first — The first steep is good and the second is bitter, flat or both.

Teas with parameters authored for this method

4 teas have a parameter set written for korean green tea brewing, in alphabetical order. Each row is transcribed from that tea’s own record.

Other western methods

Same family, so the approach is close — the vessel, the ratio and the intent still differ.

• Herbal infusion (tisane) — Steeping leaves, flowers or fruit that are not Camellia sinensis. The method looks like tea brewing and follows different rules, because the material has none of the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time.
• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.
• Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
• Mug infuser brewing — Loose leaf in a basket inside a mug — the most common way loose tea is actually made, and the method most often responsible for people concluding that loose leaf is not worth the trouble.
• Sweet tea (American Southern style) — Black tea brewed hot and strong as a concentrate, sweetened while it is still hot, then diluted with cold water and chilled. It is a regional American household staple, and the sequence of those four steps is the whole method — rearranging them produces a different and worse drink.
• Tea bag brewing — Pre-portioned tea in a permeable bag. The format was an accident of early twentieth-century sampling practice and became the dominant way tea is drunk worldwide, because it removes every decision except how long to leave it in.
• Western brewing (teapot or mug) — A small amount of leaf in a large volume of water, steeped once for a few minutes and then strained off. The approach most English-speaking drinkers already know, and the one most teas sold in the West are made for.

Sources