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After the mandatory period of Stubborn Resistance To New Things, I've decided to try out Gong Fu brewing for my tea today. It has gone better than expected, and I am a fool for not trying it before.
For background, I drink a lot of tea. Like, so much tea that Adagio sends me daily emails because they know there's a solid chance my impulsive gay ass will buy something. Not that any of y'all asked, but I'm currently in love with their Ma Liu Mi when my job requires me to actually, like, work, and I also drink at least one cup of Silver Sprout a day because if I drink it fast enough it makes my bones vibrate and sometimes you just need that.
The other day I posted a picture of my tea on Tumblr and somebody had the AUDACITY to ask me why I brew my tea "grandpa style." First of all, I have already been verbally demoted to Withered Hag recently by that teenager who looked at my circa-2011 Regular Show shirt and told me he remembered watching it when he was like six so I DO NOT need to be aged like that again. Second of all, fuck off it's my tea!!
Unfortunately a bitch was right.
For those who don't know, "grandpa-style" is just a catch-all term for a few different things, but in this case means leaving the leaves in the water/already-steeped tea for a few minutes while you drink what you've poured out. In this instance, I would drink about half the tea from the pot while the other half was still in the leaves. Sometimes this makes the tea taste a little bitter, but I don't really mind.
Gong-fu is "rinsing" the leaves with boiling water for ~10 seconds, pouring that out, and then steeping the leaves for ~30 seconds before pouring the whole pot in another container so it doesn't over steep. Also you're supposed to double the amount you usually use but I stopped measuring with "teaspoons" and started measuring with "blind scoop with whatever utensil comes out of the drawer first" years ago so I just guessed at that.
Anyway, here's my completely-professional-and-not-at-all-amatuer comparison:
- It tastes better, just generally. Maybe because I used more leaves? Whatever reason, it came out great.
- It didn't have that slightly-metallic aftertaste that second steeps usually get when brewing the "grandpa" way
- The second infusion was a little better than the first, not gonna lie. Usually it's the other way around but this time the second pot was better
- According to the internet, I can steep this particular tea three to five times, but honestly I think I can get six out of it. Gonna call that a win
So, yeah, it's better. Ryan thinks it uses too much water but he also doesn't drink the tea. Maybe I'll save it for my houseplants instead of pouring it out, but that's wishful thinking for someone who can't remember to put in the drain filter most of the time.
Oh and I'm still working on my profile theme, so if you open it and it looks like a mess, my bad. I got busy. Oops.
Also I feel like I should throw it out there that I'm not being paid by Adagio for this bc I dropped some links to their site, but also I'm not above selling out so if y'all read this SEND ME SOME FREE TEA AND I'LL SHILL FOREVER
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