gurdymonkey | Tea and retail therapy

Let's face it, I did need a couple more decent sized tea tins, the hohin that I was just looking at was offered at a price drop - and with the lockdown I certainly haven't been spending my money on all that much. It's just shopping karma that items from three different sellers all turned up on the same day. The silver can has phoenixes embossed on it. Both it and the sumo can also have internal lids to preserve freshness. The smaller one is holding an Anxi oolong, the sumo is big enough for 100g of sencha.

I admit, the hohin is smaller than I expected, even though I know I looked at the measurements. It WILL hold 100ml fluid, so it's just big enough to brew just about anything I have but the hojicha, which has really big leaves.

I decided to christen it with the Sakura Tea from Kyoto Obobu Farms, literally dried cherry blossoms and some sugar. It looked very pretty in the pot as the flowers unfurled, but ultimately after a 30 second steep at 175F, it was just hot sugar water. If there was any other flavor or scent, I didn't pick it up.

No worries, there's still hojicha leaf from yesterday's brew. I already brewed some up this morning and I can probably get another cup or two out of the same leaves.

For tea novices who might actually be reading this, you absolutely can re-brew with leaves you've used before. Depending on the tea, you can get several steeps. If you're using tea bags or an infuser, simply take it out after a steep and set it aside on a clean surface or plate. You may have noticed that teapots for Chinese and Japanese teas are relatively small - you should only be using enough water to brew the tea and drink it, draining the pot. I generally pour using a filter with the kyusu, tap any leaves back into the top of the pot, then I poke a chopstick down the spout, spread the wet leaves in the shallow bottom, and leave the lid off the pot. This is fine for tea you're planning to continue with during the day. If you're not going to get to it right away, dump the leaves out to dry on paper towels. Yes, it's going to oxidize and lose flavor if you don't get around to using it, but I made a pot of hojicha for breakfast yesterday, steeped it again in the afternoon, and again this morning, just increasing steep times by a few seconds each time.

Try it, trust your taste buds. If it tastes good, you can feel virtuous about not letting good tea go to waste. If it tastes like it's lost that lovin' feeling, it's time to pour it out and move on.

Time to go start up the kettle.