The Great Tuna [ed. note:Â now mysteriously revealed to be called “Chris”], who was present at the tasting where I learned the new Japanese cold brewing style, sent me these photos he took. I post them with his permission (click on them to enlarge):
This is Aaron shaking the teapot into the little cups. I believe this is a hot brew because of how much liquid is in the cups. (We did two cold brews and two hot of each set of leaves.)
In the above photo you can see several aspects of the tasting. On the left you can see how tiny the teapot is. In the lower-right you can see a typical gongfu tasting cup, next to one of Aaron’s cups with just a tiny amount of white glaze in the bottom, and a tinier amount of tea. That’s about how much we got from the cold brews. In the center of the table, we had four senchas brewing and we’d go back to them over time to see how they’d developed. The large bowl between the spoon rinsing stations was our slop bowl.
This is a closeup of the four senchas, the spoon rinsing bowls, and the slop bowl. For those who haven’t experienced this kind of brewing, the leaves are put in a bowl with water, and a spoon is used to dip out a little into your own tasting cup. Between dips, the spoon is rinsed in a cup of clean water. That way people can share spoons and drink out of the same bowl while not sharing their germs and not cross-contaminating tea flavors.
You know, you can just call me Chris 😉
The Monty Python geek in me wants to respond “I didn’t know you were called Chris…” but the Tea Geek in me will point out that the last time you responded your profile was “The Great Tuna” so I figured I’d just go with that. 🙂
–Tea Geek (aka Michael)