Oolong and Strife

Yes! I’m not alone! Haha, I sometimes have trouble finding others who have dealt with the exact same experience, so glad to know my taste buds aren’t just broken.

I may have to play with the hotter/shorter first infusion and see how that works. Do you reccomend 205F for all the infusions, or just the first? I have noticed though that no matter what oolong it is, 30 seconds is usually fine for the initial brew. It tastes great and light but just flavorful enough. It’s the repeat infusions that instantly seem to release the really astringent soapy flavors.

I’m almost tempted to try a sort of backwards then forwards method. 30 seconds first infusion, then 15 seconds, then 30, 45, 60 and so on? I tried starting with 15 and then just adding 15 each time but it seemed like the first several infusions were just a little weak in flavor that way, especially that initial 15 second one.

The struggle is that I’m trying to find something that is consistent for at least most oolongs I encounter, so that I have a good starting point when I encounter a new one. I know every tea takes to being brewed a bit differently and sometimes you just have to adjust for each tea and use some intuition, but I would hope there’s a method that’ll at least produce something drinkable regardless of the tea if it is of the same type. I have figured out such methods for every type of tea but rolled oolong so far, so here’s hoping.

As for the rinse, I have always rinsed oolongs until just a couple days ago in fact. I had this wild thought that you are dissolving and rinsing away most of the natural sugars in the leaves in that initial rinse and that I shouldn’t do one so I don’t lose that flavor, so I’ve been trying oolongs without a rinse and honestly I can say I have highly preferred the results so far!

Thanks for your advice. I’ll report back when I’ve gotten some more experimenting in. Right now I’m going back and forth between a very light Jin Xuan I have and this really intense Osmanthus Oolong, hoping I can find something that makes them both taste okay. So far it’s either the Jin Xuan is too weak or the Osmanthus tastes like soap in the mouth!

Haha, the same here! Taste buds, united.

I tend to use 200F-205F on the first infusion, and by means of the kettle cooling, 195F-200F on the second and third. Then I refill my kettle, and reboil. It works out for convenience and for theory – I tested this pattern out based on Stephane Erler’s advice on the TeaMasters blog, and I liked it better than my previous 190F habit.

30s sounds fine too, if the problem is in later infusions, maybe hold off on adding additional time until necessary? 30s, 30s, 40s, 40s, 45s, 1, so on, only as needed. Sometimes I might end up with an infusion that’s a bit weak, but then I can just readjust on the next brew. The backwards method is interesting, I’d like to test that out too!

I am in the same boat as you haha, I’ve been trying to find some of these consistent parameters for use with each type of tea. I’m actually planning on doing collaborations with some other people in the tea community on compiling data for this (with multiple infusions), so if you’re interested, you could pool some of your data with us to see if we can find some consistencies! :D It will probably always be a steep slope because of how diverse tea is, along with all the variables like kettle type and water, but I’m excited to see if we can find at least some guide points to use! :D

Glad to hear that, sometimes I wonder if I’ve been messing up oolongs ever since I decided to not rinse, but yesss, it’s nice to think that we can get as much out of the leaves as possible haha. I haven’t noticed any deficiencies either, but also another thing to test. Starting now on some Jin Xuan to join you haha.

Oh yeah! I did try repeating the first infusion with the Osmanthus I’m trying to get right, and it was still overbrewed, which is why I thought of stepping it back a bit on the second infusion. I have seen this method suggested sometimes with certain teas and have tried it to varying success. It’s more of something you’d do with a sencha to go backwards in infusion times instead of forwards, but I have seen it suggested a time or two with other teas, the theory being that the first infusion opens the leaves up so by the second infusion the flavor comes out much faster and you don’t need as much time, but then of course in later infusions you need to add time as the leaves begin to lose flavor overall.

Back to work I go.

Did you find something that worked? I found one that worked for both my super heady Osmanthus oolong and my super subtle Jin Xuan. Here is what worked.

4.5g/100ml, 194F/90C, no rinse
0:30,0:20,0:30,0:45,1:00,1:30,2:00
(and so on, adding 30 seconds each time if you wanna keep going)

It kept the Osmanthus light and just on the edge of where I was anticipating the astringency but didn’t get it, so I think it was a pretty medium-bodied and nice brew. As for the Jin Xuan it was pretty light, but the Jin Xuan I have is almost always that light no matter how long you brew it, so I think it was just fine. There was still plenty of detectable (and delectable) flavor!

I’ll be trying this on some other rolled oolongs over the next few days, particularly some stronger flavored and roasted ones, so we’ll see how that goes.

Yes, found something that worked! I tried a first batch with some of the suggestions I proposed above, with higher temperatures and lower steep times. That yielded better complexity and more longevity to the tea (11 infusions), but a loss of that creaminess of the Jin Xuan and more harsh notes. I tried again with lower temperatures, this batch went very well, incredibly creamy and with enough complexity too.

Alishan Jin Xuan (Winter 2013)
4.5g/100mL, no rinse
1st: 0:30 @ 200F
2nd: 0:30 @ 195F
3rd: 0:35 @ 192F
4th: 0:40 @ 202F
5th: 1min @ 202F
6th: 1:30 @ 195F
7th: 2:15 @ 202F
8th: 4:15 @ 199F
9th: 30:00 @ 200F - end

Lots of great, solid infusions. The weakest one was the 192F one, a bit too low as that infusion lacked character despite being very smooth. The 195F infusions were very nice, but the cycling up to 202F brought out some the savory-salt notes from the first batch that I really like in Alishan, too. I’d like to try out the consistent 194F/90C setting though, I have one more batch of the Jin Xuan I could experiment with. :D How did your experiments go?

I am definitely curious to try the method you used. Other than the changing temperatures, our results were actually almost the same within about 5-10 seconds of each other on some infusions, and the same on several as well. That’s so cool.

I’ll have to try out your way of doing it in a bit here. I’m glad you figured something out, and I’m glad it is similar to mine because it says we’re on the right track.

Mine went like this:
0:30, 0:20, 0:30, 0:45, 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 3:00 (and add a minute for each after)

It was 4.5g per 100ml and all at 194F

I usually get “over” a tea by about 7 or 8 infusions so I didn’t really go quite as deep into figuring out how many extra minutes to follow after that.

Haha!! An actual orchid field in the face would be pretty appealing, wouldn’t it? Just not first thing in the morning in an overbrewed pot of oolong. ;)