I've been using too much leaf.

Scales? Phooey. Real men guestimate using a well calibrated wrist.
Looky here- this looks about right- dump it in the pot.


Man, have I been off the mark.


Science!

Ouch....are you enjoying the scale? Thinking of ordering one with my next shipment.

Ha, ha, ha... have noticed the same thing myself.
My wrist calibration seems to have been off by quite a bit also!
Is science really better than the zen of the wrist? Time will tell.

I look at making tea like making art...you can never paint the same masterpiece twice, and you can never step into the same river twice, etc. There is no point in trying to make the same pot of tea twice. If you distill the art of tea down to an exact science every time, then you really suck all the joy out of it (especially if you use a Yixing pot and steep multiple times...). Measuring exact water temp, ph, weighing out the leaves, etc...all of that is not necessary, other than as a general guideline. Let experience guide you. Look at the tea, come to terms with it, study it, feel it in your hand...use what you feel to be the right amount. Steep and enjoy and reflect. Adjust as needed the next time around, but live in the now when it comes to your tea. There is no "wrong way".

Trust me on this...I work for a coffee & tea company, and used to conduct tasting training. I used to strive for exact perfection and replication with every cup, every pot, every time. I would measure out with a digital scale, use a digital thermometer for the water, use a digital timer for steep times...tea is NOT DIGITAL. It cannot be defined by 1's and 0's, and cannot be quantified simply by digits. It is the sum of the experience.

What do I do now?
I pick a tea for my enjoyment.
I scoop out whatever feels like the right amount and put it in my holding bowl.
I boil some water and preheat my pot and cup.
I put fresh water on to boil.
I look at the water, and when the bubbles look right and the surface moves a certain way, and the SOUND hits that sweet spot, I know it's ready (depends on the tea I'm brewing though, but I know that 3-5mm bubbles coming to a gently rolling but not boiling surface and making gentle popping noises at a time when the kettle sound has just begun to quiet down is right at about 185-190 degrees - perfect for a jade oolong...).
I pour out my preheat water from the pot.
I put the tea in the pot and I wet the leaves, pour off that little bit, then fill the pot.
I put the lid on and breathe.
When some time has passed (again, depends on the tea, but this can be anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes), and it feels right, I remove the lid, and look at what the leaves are doing.
If they look content, then I replace the lid, empty the heating water from my cup, and serve the tea.
I enjoy the tea either alone or with company.
I reflect, relax, and/or converse about pleasant things.
When I am done, I thank the tea for the time and move on to other things...

I find it hard to guesstimate since beengs vary in density. That's where the scale comes in. Break a piece of tea off, throw her on the scale, and if it's somewhere around 5-7 grams I'm good to go.

The model I own:

The way think of a scale is to regard it as training aid.

At cooking school, students will practice estimating the weight of ingredients. A short order cook knows what a quarter ounce of chopped onion looks like and will throw that into a Western Omelet without missing a beat.

If you use a scale over time you will develop a feel for estimating the weight of the tea you are using. If you don’t weigh your tea, you will never learn to estimate its weight.

Preparing tea maybe an art, but until the basics are mastered, its really just a hit and miss proposition.

Erik said:

The way think of a scale is to regard it as training aid.

At cooking school, students will practice estimating the weight of ingredients. A short order cook knows what a quarter ounce of chopped onion looks like and will throw that into a Western Omelet without missing a beat.

If you use a scale over time you will develop a feel for estimating the weight of the tea you are using. If you don’t weigh your tea, you will never learn to estimate its weight.

Preparing tea maybe an art, but until the basics are mastered, its really just a hit and miss proposition.

Click to expand...

That's true....I've made a lot of tea over the years, lol. I just don't even think about it, I guess. Not that I'd consider myself a master by any stretch...I guess I'm just comfortable with imperfection or willing to accept that it's never the same no matter what. Not that I'm saying I settle for bad tea...far from it, lol.

GoldenMonkey said:

tea is NOT DIGITAL

Click to expand...

'tis true...

Erik said:

If you don’t weigh your tea, you will never learn to estimate its weight. Preparing tea maybe an art, but until the basics are mastered, its really just a hit and miss proposition.

Click to expand...

I disagree. I don't think that a scale is necessary to master the basics of using an appropriate amount of tea. Visual cues, for instance, can be just as reliable. Some familiarity with the characteristics of the tea in question is also required, and can also be quickly learned: someone has already mentioned puerh bing compression, another example is rolled oolong that opens up to fill a surprising amount of space. I occasionally end up using too much leaf, and I'll make a note for the next session. Similar difficulties exist when using a scale.

I do prefer a scale in order to do 'competition' style tasting of a tea.

I will never use a scale to make tea. I think it is best to gain experience drinking the tea under different parameters until you hit the right balance of elements. A scale only offers limitations, a tea brewed may only need 3 grams, or it may need 20, and only experience will determine this. Sometimes teamasters just throw some leaves in a bowl and begin drinking, as did the shamans of centuries before.

When one has no form, one can be all forms- Bruce Lee

kimble22 said:

I will never use a scale to make tea. I think it is best to gain experience drinking the tea under different parameters until you hit the right balance of elements. A scale only offers limitations, a tea brewed may only need 3 grams, or it may need 20, and only experience will determine this. Sometimes teamasters just throw some leaves in a bowl and begin drinking, as did the shamans of centuries before.

When one has no form, one can be all forms- Bruce Lee

Click to expand...

Bruce Lee and I agree on your points there, kimble...

Wonderful post, goldenmonkey!

I guess I use my scale out of habit. I think I'll stop using it for teas that I'm familiar with, and only use it for teas I'm not used to. I see where you guys are coming from. I imagine "learning the leaves" is probably more satisfying than using a scale.

Well said Kimble. I guess as a scientist and engineer, I am just having fun with the scale. In reality, I have not needed it for the last years to make very fine tea.

Cheers,
Steve

kimble22 said:

I will never use a scale to make tea. I think it is best to gain experience drinking the tea under different parameters until you hit the right balance of elements. A scale only offers limitations, a tea brewed may only need 3 grams, or it may need 20, and only experience will determine this. Sometimes teamasters just throw some leaves in a bowl and begin drinking, as did the shamans of centuries before.

When one has no form, one can be all forms- Bruce Lee

Click to expand...

erik said:

the way think of a scale is to regard it as training aid.

Click to expand...

+1

If one simply uses a scale to weight tea before you seep it, you will know how much tea you used and that's about it.

The scale should be used to help you develop a keen sense of estimation.

Let say you want to use 3g of Tie Guan Yin in a 100ml pot.

Turn the scale on.
Place a small container on the scale and press the 'TARE' button. This set the scale back to zero.
Remove the small container from the scale and place what you think is 3g of the Oolong.
Place the container back on the scale and see how close you were.
If you were close, adjust the amount in the container and when it is exact, pause for a moment and give your brain a snapshot of what 3g of Tie Guan Yin looks like.
If you were far off, empty the tea out of the container and try again.

If hate to state the obvious but different teas have different densities.
A highly compressed Xiaguan Tuocha is denser than a leafy Dragon Well.

This means that you have to train on different types of teas.

If you use this method for even a short period of time you will be amazed at how close your estimates will become.

I'm good at eyeballing the loose stuff stuff that I'm used to drinking. But, being a nub in the Pu-erh crowd, I've been weighing it just to make sure I don't go crazy adding too much of the brick. That stuff's expensive, and I don't have the luxury of playing with parameters. I want to sample the Tea Pass items once, and properly. Then I'll probably go out and buy a boatload of Beijing Delight and start a huge Tea Den...fiiiighting theeeee urrge. Sooo haaarrd. Grrr.

I use a scale, and it has told me that I prefer to use a lot of leaf.
10-14g for a dozen or so 8 oz infusions.

Now that I'm drinking puerh every day, I feel its myriad physiological effects.

Like a monkey pushing a button!

I don't really think 10-14g is a lot for a 240mL pot. I generally use 7-8g of shu or 8-10g of sheng in my ~140mL gaiwans. I personall find that anything more than 10g in one of my gaiwans makes sheng too had to control.

This post will probably spark some interesting discussion. As a disclaimer, I'm not saying what I do, say, or think is at all the "right way". I'm not talking down to anyone, I don't think I'm better than anyone else. The beauty of tea is for everyone's experience with it to be personal. Now having said that, here is my differing opinion, and some things that have been on my mind lately.

To me a scale is invaluable. I guess I'll be the differing opinion here, as it seems B&B and myself don't see eye to eye when it comes to matters of tea probably 90% of the time. I don't claim to be anything close to an expert, or even claim I am a seasoned tea drinker. I'm a student of tea, just like everyone else. What I will say, however, is this.

I've sampled tons of teas the past few years. To me, a sample is a sample, a cake is a cake, and a tong is a big commitment. I've had too much mediocre tea to put up with any more, and I don't have the disposable income to really tolerate it. It seems I've been sampling a ton of younger, nascent sheng (to use a phrase coined by Geraldo) the past few years, and really it's changed my perspective on a number of things, but here are just a few of them.

1.) I used to absolutely love young sheng, and couldn't understand why everyone ranted and raved about aged tea, let alone shu in general! It was a short phase I went through, until I actually started trying a bunch of different aged teas. To me now, I'd much rather pay the price of two to three young cakes for a smaller sample of a truly great aged treasure, and this is something I had to learn through tasting a lot of young and old. I used to think that taste was the most important factor of a tea, but now that has changed completely as well.
2.) It teaches me that my stomach can't handle too much young sheng these days, especially not as much as I used to be able to drink.
3.) It taught me that tea cannot be provided any crutches. If 20% of all teas I try fail under a set order of brewing parameters, then it's the tea's faults. I used to be an "eyeball and wing it" kind of guy when it came to tea, but definitely not anymore. I would add more to weak tea, add less for tea that needed at least five more years on it to try again, and overall it showed me that the weaker teas really weren't worth my time in the end. Contrary to what seems to be modern popular belief on the forums, not all teas get better with age.
4.) Yixing lies, gaiwans do not. While a yixing is great at masking the unpleasantness of a lot of teas, that's the precise reason I won't use it to make teas I plan on aging. Since I don't like them enough to drink them all up while young, nor have the stomach for it, it's pointless to me.

I guess the real question is, are you storing your collection, hoping it will turn into something truly great one day, or are you purchasing to drink now? I used to be the latter, but now fall into the former's camp. I understand there are those who do both, as well.

It could also be a matter of perspective. I look at samples of newer teas as testing. I test the teas out. If they pass, I buy some cakes, and if they fail, I haven't lost much money.

Nice post^^^

I haven't had any aged teas yet, and I think that is a good thing at this point. Right now I really enjoy young sheng, and I don't want to ruin that by trying some really amazing aged tea, which I can't afford. So currently I'm buying with intent to drink now, not to store for aging. Though, I think I would prefer drinking aged teas while drinking less tea, rather than drinking young sheng everyday, but I'm going to put that off until I've had all the young shengs I want to have.