Oolong gongfu tips?

It depends on the oolong you are using but I tend to use way more leaf than that, like 6 to 9 grams for around 100ml. Some people just fill the gaiwan and go crazy with shorter steeps.

You can always get a smaller gaiwan. I use a 40ml vessel for me more expensive oolongs.

edit, brewing ideas from teadb http://teadb.org/wuyi-oolong-compendium/

http://teadb.org/taiwanese-oolong-compendium/

my gaiwan is small. im trying to judge by eye and its more curved inwards than i thought – actually now i think it is a 40 or 50ml one looking at it up against my 12oz bodum glass.

edit* its 60ml

Typically I use much less tea for grampa-style vs. gongfu. In a 16oz. Glass I usually only fill the bottom, using around 2g or so. My rule of thumb (besides the 1/4-1/3 rule of filling the gaiwan) is to use 1g of leaf per 20ml.

I like you tend to use a lot less leaf than some others here for most Oolong’s with the exception of a number of Dancongs which I tend to steep chaozou style ( lots of leaf and flash steeping) The amount of leaf I use otherwise depends on what I want out of the experience !its of leaf can lead to a longer gongfu session and may increase my chances of getting Tea drunk but it also tends to increase the vegetal notes in green Oolong’s for me. I tend to use less leaf when testing Teas because at least for me the subtle nuances in the flavour become more apparent for me. Most of the time I use between 3.5-5 g /100g. The steeping time varies widely depending on the Tea. My strongly flavoured green Oolong’s only usually require a 5s initial steep with increases only being 2-5 s in the early stages. Length of steep increases lengthen as the flavour weakens in shorter steeps. Others require longer initial steeps but increases are still usually between 5-10s.

For flavored oolongs, I find 2-2.5 grams tea to be sufficient. I steep for 2 minutes in a 150 ml gaiwan, filled about 75% of the way, adding a minute to each additional steep.

Unflavored teas, I do western style with 4m/6m/7m steeps at 185-195 F using 1.5-2 grams of tea. I prefer roasted oolongs western style and the best flavor of unroasted oolongs come with a higher leaf and shorter steep times.

You said you like a big cup of tea. If you are going to brew it in your 60ml gaiwan, you cannot do it western style – since you need multiple steeps to get a large cup and western style brewing will take so long that the earlier steeps will cool down too much.

I use 6gm in a 90ml gaiwan and mix 3 steeps into a large mug for drinking. I get 3 mugs (1 mug per 2gm) out of it. Usually the first set of steeps ending at 30 secs, next at 1 min and last at 2 min.

Wanted to add some recent insights. I’ve had good success with Naivetea’s steeping instructions for straight and flavored oolongs. About 1.5 tsp of tea – which works out to 2.5 to 3 grams for rolled tea – in a 150 ml gaiwan filled 2/3 of the way for steep times of 50s/40s/50s/60s/70s/90s/120s. I like the shorter steep times as it helps avoid bitterness.

Any reason for using a 2/3rd filled 150ml vessel instead of a full 100ml one?

I also do similar steep times when brewing in a 150ml pot, usually 6 steeps starting from about 40 secs and finishing at 2 mins. I’ve never found any bitterness in oolongs, didn’t even know they could get bitter, I thought that happened mainly with greens.