How To Brew Oolong Tea

by Andrew Kulakov

Andrew shares his tip on how to brew oolong tea...

I drink loose leafs for about 6 years and I've never had good results for my taste with using recommended amounts of leaf. I use much less, but that depends on the tea.

For green oolongs especially I can't stand using too much leaf. I use about 1.5-2 spoons (I don't measure just drag it out with a chopstick until it looks about right) to a 3 cup pot.

For dark oolongs it's a different matter, I could use a bit more. This depends very much on your taste and on whether you drink the tea with some kind of food.

I don't like the taste of water that was cooled down from a boil. I have a pot now that's got a dark enamel on the inside, therefore I
can't see if bubbles are forming and how big they are, therefore what I do is this: I wash my hands and when I think the water may be ready, I hold my hand over the kettle and feel if the steam rising is hot enough. I find this way of measuring to be most practical and precise for me.

When I used an enamel kettle on an electric heater, it made the tea taste different in a way that I don't like so I stopped doing that. I'm afraid that may be an issue for me with electric kettles, but many other people use them without problems.

Try if you can feel a difference when you stop water before boiling.

As for a zisha clay 'gongfu' tea pot, the idea is to use so much leaf that it will unfurl to fill whole or almost whole volume . Naturally this means using much more leaf.

Get a really tiny gaiwan or a gong-fu pot and put about 1/4 to 1/3 volume of dry leaf; again this depends on how big the leaves are and how firmly they will pack, if they are very loose then you can even fill half the volume.

When it's brewed, it will expand to fill most of the pot. Then do a series of steeps, around 6 to 8, starting with a 30-45 second steep and then gradually increasing the time.

When I tried higher grade teas I found that they are much more reliable. They are always great and it's hard to mess it up, even if you do something wrong it gets only a little worse, not much worse.

Medium range teas are at times almost perfect but when the temp is a bit off, or when they cool off in a few minutes, they quickly become ordinary or plain bad. I'm never really sure I'll get the next brew right.

Other tangential (seemingly) things can be as important, though. Like the water you use, the tea pot, whether you wash it after use
including the lid, preheating the pot can be very effective...