Water Stuff

I’ve been having some more tea with others lately – there’s something interesting about drinking tea at someone else’s house- it really breaks you out of some of your habits and perspectives, and you get to try someone else’s water! Everyone does something different, from filtration to mineralization to choice of bottled water. I have a friend who filters nyc tap with a berkey type filter, then adds salt and baking soda – something I never thought would work! Another friend uses Saratoga in glass for everything. I was using everpure filtered NYC tap, but have lately been using many brands of spring water and even blending them together. This brings me to a new idea:

There isn’t one “right” water for tea!

Is there a “right” wine? A “correct” beer? An “optimal” meal? Of course not! The variety of all of these is something we embrace and celebrate. I think for years when I was working on constructing my own water from scratch (which you can read about in many older posts on this blog) I was aiming for a certain perfect composition, one that would work for all tea perfectly. Now, I think this is a flawed way of thinking.

Each water has a certain character, or way of conveying flavor and texture, with different timings and dynamics.

Flavor: certain waters make sweeter tea, like icelandic, Poland spring origin/Saratoga. Some make less sweet, more austere tea, like trader Joe’s small bottles from the PA source. But beyond that macro level, there seem to be different balances of flavor and aroma and different flavors are brought out or revealed entirely sometimes. When tds is too low, you miss out on a tertiary taste caused by interactions between calcium and magnesium bicarbonates with the tea. In semi-aged puerh it’s a warm rich bready flavor (to me). This is probably the wrong word for it. Yeasty? Sounds gross but it’s not. Sweet earth-ish, a flavor you can really chew on. Using low tds like Saratoga or sant-anna, you get a beautiful clear taste but you do miss out on that extra richness. Some waters have 1/10 the amount of flavor as others. It’s striking.

Texture– speaking of, higher calcium-magnesium bicarbonate waters can have a more rich, oily texture. High sulfate low bicarbonate waters are drying and “grippy” like trader Joe’s small bottles. Trader Joe’s big bottles from Tennessee are much softer and thicker in texture, for example. Every water has a different texture – you can group them but they’re all a bit different. This is with tea, I mean. This whole post is about water for tea – water itself is a different story. It’s also true but in a different way. Higher sodium and chloride also adds body and expansiveness and makes the tea more “slippery”. Point is, different waters make tea with different textures in different ways.

Timings – some waters are very quick, the tea comes in, you get the taste, and then it’s done. Other waters form a ball in the mouth that slowly releases flavor/sensation/aroma. This creates a very different drinking/emotional experience.

Dynamics – the qi of tea definitely is affected by water. Both the amount and balance of minerals will affect the amount and character of the qi. Some waters allow you to have a consistent session with a tea from first to last steep – others will cause the tea to change flavor a lot more mid-session. Seriously!

It all sounds overwhelming!

Yeah, but it’s not meant to be reduced down. Tea reveals waters’ diversity and beauty. Water and tea help each other to speak. So, it’s just a natural variety!

There is no one right water for tea. BUT! Some waters are better than others.

“Some waters are better than others” is a phrase that suggests an easy, definitive “spec” that you would go for. But really, it’s just like tea, wine, music etc. – there are ranges of waters that are better or worse for different reasons, and will result in a subjective-to-arguably-objective holistic order of preference for different situations. It’s part of the art of tea I guess, how we choose different pots, cups, pitchers, chabus and build a map of all our tea experiences and memories.

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I think the reason why water is usually overlooked is it’s seen as a problem to be solved. There’s a certain ennui to being like, goddammit I have to go buy some water filter, or minerals, or RO, or go spend even more money on bottled water which I don’t even know will be good or bad… but when seen as part of the exploration and joy of tea, it opens up a world of variety, trains your palate, and honestly makes you appreciate nature, as water is the fundamental natural substance that helps bring life to tea in the first place.

Articles I liked from Wooju:

https://vieillesvignes.substack.com/p/the-impact-of-water

https://www.listeningtoleaves.com/calibration

Callback to an old post:

2004 Biyun Hao Manzhuan with Fake Toronto Water

Tea Goals – Re-enlivening the practice

Since I began writing this blog, I feel like my tea drinking has entered a new phase. I’ve tried all the types of tea, I’ve tried so much water, I have all sorts of teaware, and I’ve enjoyed thousands of gongfu tea sessions. While in some ways I am not very experienced – I have never been to China, Japan, Taiwan etc., I feel like I am a pretty experienced tea drinker nowadays.

After drinking tea for a while, it can be easy to settle into routines, to literally “go through the motions” of gongfu tea practice. Grab a teapot, grab a tea, weigh it, load the teapot, do the session, dump it out, clean up, repeat. After a few hundred iterations of this, it can become a little routine – less and less exciting over time. I love tea so the practice never loses its charm, but sometimes it feels like I could have gotten / used to get much more out of my hour long sit. Luckily, there are all sorts of things we can do to prevent this deterioration and keep things fresh.

1) Getting new things

Change one thing about your tea practice, and you change everything. A new unglazed clay teapot makes every tea taste different and feel different to pour. A new chabu (tea mat) stimulates your mind and its associations to what you’re doing and feeling in a different way. Even a new waste bowl / jianshui sets the tone uniquely. A new teatable gives you and your guests a memorable setting for everything! So, you can always mindfully choose a cup or pitcher or anything that might make your sessions feel new and exciting.

2) Presence

Zen aphorism: if you drink tea, just drink your tea. Where I work, the tea room doesn’t allow technology at the tea table. When I’m home, anything is allowed, but sometimes I have to set the intention before the session to make this about presence, not about consumption or entertainment. For my sessions at home, the music playlist, cassette tape or vinyl record goes on, and the phone goes face down on the table, the modern gesture of defiance of being controlled by tech.

Then, it’s a matter of being present to my actions and sensations. The experience magnifies – what was once just abstractly/conceptually “drinking tea” becomes a living reality. There is so much going on at the tea table, it makes any possible distraction seem boring by comparison. There’s truly a universe inside each teapot, I mean, not to wax poetic, but you can’t get to the bottom of it. There’s really a lot going on and it’s constantly shifting and revealing new aspects. You miss all of that when you don’t pay attention, and the longer you pay attention, the deeper you go. The deeper you go, the better you feel, and the more likely you are to discover something you’ve never noticed before. Right?

3) Technique

I have to admit, even though I’ve made tea for a long time, because of the person I am, I can be a bit messy and inconsistent. When people do gongfu with a very defined sequence of movements, it looks flawless. I don’t really have that – I go by intuition, so things move around, aren’t set in stone, improvised, done in different orders. Perhaps that’s indicative of a sort of neuroticism. So, I’d like to arrive at a smooth and professional style of serving gongfu that still contains my personal essence. This is a very fruitful development in tea practice: discovering your way of serving and then codifying it into something you can follow consistently. Doing this, you can stop thinking about what you’re doing entirely, and then just move with the tea effortlessly. This probably looks really good and feels very satisfying. So try even writing down a sequence of events, like if/when you pour water over the teapot etc., and try it out/tweak over time until it solidifies.

4) Water (gypsum)

Water is crazy – want to revitalize your tea practice? Move to a new city/country. Everything changes. Water is the communicator of tea. Water expresses tea. The different mineral content and other aspects of the water will change how it tastes and how the mouthfeel is, for every tea you have. It also changes the energy and feeling of the tea. If you don’t want to move, try this little tip. 5-10mg of gypsum in your kettle will intensify and brighten your session, maybe revealing new flavors. Try it! Also, getting a good filter like an everpure will reveal more subtle flavors that were being masked before. Fresh!

5) Friends

Don’t be shy – have friends over for tea or bring your tea to a house party and set up a little tea corner. There’s something about opening up your personal tea practice to others that is very gratifying and helps you look at your own ways of enjoying tea with fresh eyes. When you have sessions with friends, let them make you a pot or two also. Comparing your tea practice to others allows you to learn so much about different perspectives and relationships to tea. Everyone makes tea so uniquely! You might say, wow this tea would never have come out this way had you not come over and brewed it for me. I appreciate this tea even more now. Thank you! Let’s grab some lunch, I’m starving!

Goals:

This is sort of a sixth idea, but also is an overall concept: it’s good to have goals for your tea practice to give it some forward momentum. They can be related to the five ideas above, but also to anything you can think of. For me, my personal examples are:

I want to be more present during my tea sessions
I want to improve my technique to make it more consistent and fluid
I want to test out my presence and technique in front of people and get joy from that

Some other hypothetical #teagoals would be:

make your water more satisfying / find a good brand of bottled water for special occasion tea sessions
find a new piece of teaware that resonates with you
learn how to experience cha qi more intimately
understand the general differences between puer tea regions and how they age
learn which teas will taste good to make for different people

So think about your tea goals! What do you want to accomplish to enjoy tea even more – how can you challenge yourself and strengthen your tea practice? How could your experience be even better, and how do you want to feel when you make tea? With these things in mind, you will have a better time with your tea.

Minimalist /// Maximalist

There are a lot of types of tea culture, and for me, I find all have their mark on my own tea sessions. There’s the gorgeous minimalism of pu-erh.sk and essence of tea for example, and there’s the direct maximalism of white2tea on the other side (at least in a lot of the art, as w2t is minimalist in other ways), the quality-focused community of teaswelike and daxue jiadao, the friendly fireside tea sessions, the spiritual global tea hut community, the edgy, music-focused kuura, and it goes on and on and on. After going on Instagram and seeing the way people are drinking and talking about tea around the world in so many different ways, the question is always, what am I going to do today with my tea?

As natural as just grabbing a tea and a teapot on autopilot and drinking it while doing/watching whatever is, I find the nature of tea to be an opportunity to set an intention, using tea culture as an inspiration. For me, there is not just one ideal. I can decide to put on Laraaji ambient zither music and have a very meditative tea session, where the tea sparkles in the light through the window as I breathe in the fresh evocative aroma of incense. I can feel my body relax as I seem to suspend time. Where did I get this from? Was it participating in tea ceremonies at Puerh Brooklyn? Was it from drinking tea with friends? Was it from watching pu-erh.sk’s stories and reading the half-dipper and mgualt doing the same sort of things? I have to say yes, it’s all of that and more. But this is not my only way of drinking tea, and it’s not the only ideal either.

Sometimes I have a very different kind of session. I get a loud, huge chabu I bought from white2tea, with art I really don’t intellectually understand, pick a rough-looking pot, grab a high end tea, grab a cassette tape or a phone and some headphones and just blast a playlist. Not ambient music – just my favorite music, anything. Intense, energetic, noisy, whatever I want. Time doesn’t stop, but it seems to melt, as one track plays after another, one pot after another, the teaware seeming to be the architecture of some nightclub, tea in technicolor. Where did I get this from? White2tea stories, of course — but it’s almost as if it’s something I would have done anyway, but also w2t gives me permission to do this and feel like I’m not the only one.

There’s also beginner’s tea – just the first gongfu puer sessions I ever did – it was just making tea in a quiet room, that’s it – no frills, no distractions, no preconceptions, no ideals. I remember how powerful those experiences were, and that’s still something I like to return to.

It feels like tea would be inherently minimalist, as it’s such a slow activity, but it’s really not that simple. Tea drinking is very fluid, and there’s maximalism in minimalism and vice versa. In a quiet, simple, low-stimulus tea session, everything is amplified, and the complexity of the tea is revealed. And in a noisy, musically and visually overwhelming tea session, everything blends into one seamless whole. I’m thankful for the tea community being so diverse, as it brings continued inspiration to my own tea table and to my life.

Water Review #10 – Sant’Anna

A HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you to sjt from https://therhymingleaf.info/ and Sara from https://italianteasociety.com/ for smuggling this water to me. Sara stopped by Puerh Brooklyn last Sunday to give me two 1.5L bottles of this water – a common water found in Italy. Water is heavy, so this is no small favor! Sjt has been working on replicating this water from scratch on his blog, which you should definitely check out. Amazing detailed explorations and experiments.

What’s interesting about this water is that it’s incredibly low TDS, at 22, but has been reported by sjt to have amazing aroma, body and texture. How could this be? I was very excited to try it, and it really delivered.

Untitled 03

7.2g 110 ml glazed pot

Electric kettle

Water: Sant’anna

TDS: 22

Ca: 3.3

Na: 1.5

HCO3: 11

Conductivity: 37 uS/cm

Silica: 6 (measured)

Arrives surprisingly deep and savory. Already really detailed in the middle and back of the mouth with big aftertastes and a sort of effervescence of flavors on the tongue. Whoa!

The taste is not too strong at all but is very present. It doesn’t attack the front of the mouth but instead hits the whole palate at a moderate pace, about 2-3 seconds after the sip arrives. I can already tell there is a balance here. It seems so textured and rich for a water this light. Compared to Poland spring origin which is more forward and front of mouth (still with body).

Steep 2: vivid, oily, citrus oils, wood oils pungency is there like bright hops (think New England IPA) what’s funny is I’ve had and made many waters that have this sort of arrival, but end up tasting muddy and flat – this holds up that structure without weighing itself down. But it’s not being too nice! The strength of a water like Truth Serum from way back in the early experimental days, so high in sulfate – there must be a good amount of sulfate in here doing its job to deliver plenty of strength and potency. Empty cup aroma is so nice, honey and flowers.

Leaves inside the teapot look happy. Always a good sign.

Steep 3- Really enjoyable and refreshing, full. You can taste the medium -endness of this tea, strengths and limitations. There’s a slight leafiness that brings it down to its level of $68/200g.

Steep 4- You can start tasting how lean this water is, as I’ve reboiled it a few times the texture starts to decrease a little bit. It still rings with very present flavor, very easy to drink, and the texture still holds together. I feel like I can taste layers of fine details. The huigan is ringing and buttery. Astringency is not a problem at all, less astringency than average.

Steep 5- Oily – it really highlights flavors you would usually find in a scotch, and I don’t mean smoky – I mean the alcohol-soluble fruits, peel oils, savory herbs, wood… But somehow here conveyed by water. Fresh and deep.

Steep 6- Qi is definitely there. I have a feeling that when the tea tastes good, it activates and allows the circulation of qi, as well as the focus and attention conducive to experiencing it. But anyway… The tea maintains great structure, tasting deeper into the leaf, as the high notes fade away to a fruit pectin and wood oil kind of experience. It’s sweet, not too sweet, bitter, not too bitter, has tannins, but not too much. I do have to say the arrival of flavor is much more immediate now; pretty much instantly when you take a sip there’s the citrus oils being presented. There’s a little peach juice too that comes later.

Later steeps- simply fades out elegantly. Some heavier waters make the tea go a bit off tasting in late steeps, but this water simply has nice, sweet, quiet late steeps.

From this session, I can tell – this water is definitely the type I look for, but on the lightest possible end of that. It’s amazing what it does with so few minerals and I believe everything here is in balance, with enough silica and good dissolved gases to be just as water should be. It makes me think my previous experiments are not too far off track. It’s just so pure and precise, and I love how it delivers every aspect of the tea. I’m very excited to try it with some mid-aged puers, like 2016 Treachery pt. 2, and also some dancong against nyc tap in a side by side. Thanks again to Sara and sjt!

Water Review – Experimental Recipe 9/8/22

These are some casual session notes for a water recipe I created as part of my ever-continuing research.

Calcium	14
Magnesium	3
Sodium	6
Potassium	2
Bicarbonate	51
Sulfate	12
Chloride	6
Silica	7

Major ions in mg/L

Tea Urchin 2019 LaoManE

It started out very fluffy and nondescript, and kept that throughout the session, and there’s a strong astringency throughout. However, underneath those there’s a fairly cohesive quality, although it lacks a solid present weight. It’s as if the astringency breaks apart the “ball” of tea that would be there. The astringency is good quality, but way too much. Anyway, underneath all of this is the beautiful citrus-spice flavor, with less bitterness than expected. So… where’s this astringency from? Signs point to potassium, as it’s very common for it to cause astringency, but natural waters with potassium don’t have such a severe effect. They also have different compositions, though.

The body of the tea is really nice, as well as the residual oils. The throat/bitterness is not great, though. It’s too candied and mild, I’d prefer some deeper yun and stronger bitterness from this tea. Why is the bitterness so low? There’s plenty of sulfate, so it should be high. My only explanation would be an excess of bicarbonate due to a measurement or calculation error. The bicarbonate could be eating up the bitterness and potency. The last possibility is the zerowater pitcher making the water alkaline due to trace NaOH. This would be solved by purchasing a good RO filter.

I came back to water chemistry recently because I’ve been watching so many chemistry videos on YouTube – I realized that although the chemistry in mineralizing water is fairly simple, the work itself, the trial and error, and the problem solving is very deep and interesting. Hearing stories from research chemists made me feel like I’m in the same boat – trying to accomplish a goal and trying different ways to get there, with no idea when you’ll find the solution.

2012 TU the orchid in valley

Really highlights the woody aspects. Initial taste was not a good experience but it grew to be more engaging with high quality rear tastes and deep flavors with a little heat and acidity too. Very pencil shavings-y. A bit juicy, which is nice. Could be 3x more though. Astringency medium.

2017 YS wild jinggu

Water diluted to 3/4 strength

Immediately smoother, round, still has a weird bitter co2 taste maybe? But a beautiful presentation. It sort of tightens into a slightly astringent finish when I’d like it to expand on release. Overall a nice session.

Some encouraging results! These sessions will give me a direction forward for future water batches. I’m simply enjoying the exploration.

Water Review – Untitled (New Version)

1 Liter of hand-crafted water in a beautiful glass bottle arrived at my apartment last week. This is the new iteration of Untitled by Arby at Empirical Water based on some of my previous feedback on the water. This new version was reviewed by mgualt here. You may remember my review of the previous version was very positive, but I later realized it could use improvements in texture to give a more natural and expansive experience. In the past months I’ve been working on my palate, trying many blends of bottled and filtered waters, getting a better understanding of the range of characteristics of waters for tea.

Fortune teller

6.8g 110ml glazed pot

Novak ceramic kettle

Water: Untitled

Steep 1:

Very substantial texture. A very oily steep. Tasting older than usual. Rich. Mushrooms, roots, herbs, mint, strength. Huigan (aftertaste echo on the breath) is sweet bubblegum and lemony root beer. Qi is warming and uplifting.

While I drink this, a huge, dense, dark thunderstorm started – I wonder if nature is mad that we’re taking over its job? Regardless, nature is making water too.

Steep 2:

A longer steep around 25 sec: seriously good delivery. Very detailed and smooth. Prolonged expression of flavors. There’s definitely a sense that this favors dark, sweet flavors, but does so in a satisfying, forward-enough way. Specifically, there’s a sweetness on the front of the tongue that is distinct and vivid, coincident with everything else. It’s quite fun to visualize where all the flavors and sensations are happening. Definitely makes the tea feel like a gastronomic event.

Steep 3:

Quicker steep, fairly buttery, a bit watery. Astringency is low-medium. Really long satisfying aftertaste and throat feel, and nice body feel as well.

Watery entry but with texture. It’s as if the tea creates a textural void which is then gradually filled with flavors. It starts with the root bitterness, then the sort of buttered popcorn and honey, then the light citrus and florals and herbs at the end. They are all present at once, but the focus shifts.

More bitterness, still nice rich oils. Still nice thickness but still has a watery quality, unlike really heavy waters that are all thickness and density with no refreshment or space. Simplifying in taste a bit to wood oils, like fresh oak.

Getting really woody now, and something that reminds me of lime jello. Astringency medium high.

Last, long steep

Not too strong, still nice layered mushrooms and wood and herbs. A bit less sweet, more dry in a nice way.

Trying a green oolong:

Leaf of the east dong ding in 100ml gaiwan-

It’s got a good taste of the roast and a good body and sweetness, but it is lacking that upfront fragrance and refreshing presence. Not the best fit. Still has a nice complexity to it, but a bit subdued. Still enjoyable.

Water rating: 8.2 – great for teas focused on richness and deep complexity, and usable across the spectrum of teas with what I would expect to be varying results. Really nice water that really doesn’t feel artificial. Nicely done Arby!

Water Evaluation – Wuyi Water

I recently completed a gallon of water from one of my water recipes, and the result is interesting! I designed it based on the mineral content that I could find of various bottled waters related to wuyi yancha, like Wuyi Nongfu. This recipe is loosely based on loose data, but follows some conventions. These conventions are a dominance of bicarbonate, low sodium, <80TDS, and medium to high silica content. This is also similar to what you might find in Seattle, but just a bit heavier.

This batch was double distilled in glass from bottled Poland spring water, with a bit of fractionation involved. Silica content is 8 ppm. The water was well aerated before bottling overnight and brewing the next morning. I made some Old Ways Tea Da Hong Pao in a glazed Jiri Lang pot.

Initial onset is sweet and gentle, with a lot of the action happening in the rear throat, mineral tastes. Texture arrives a bit thin but some structure builds on subsequent steeps. Aftertaste is very long on the breath. The water does not feel heavy, there is a refreshing quality. A lot of nice sweetness and very integrated roast with some fruit and toasty rocky flavors. Some astringency but not very much. With this water, the tea doesn’t burst with flavors, it calmly settles into them.

Overall, it’s a bit too veiled for me, but worth trying. I’d love to try some real Wuyi Nongfu someday to compare. I wonder how to improve this water – for now I’m not sure, and as usual will keep making different waters and exploring. There seems to be a few things in my water making process that need improvement regardless of recipe, so I’m looking forward to working on those too.

Review: Empirical Water “Untitled” and “Original”

Over the past few months, Arby has been making progress on his water recipes, crafting and dialing in various waters for tea. His online store, empiricalwater.com, is launching soon, and he sent me four waters to test. So much progress has been made and I’m excited to see how these waters affect the tea world. Although Arby and I work separately, and I don’t know what these recipes specifically are, I can tell we have reasonably similar standards and ideals, so when Arby sends me water, I know to look forward to some really nice and fresh sessions. Let’s get into it.

Original:

White2tea 2020 Turtle Dove white tea – 3.3g/50ml gaiwan

This water is definitely aerated:

You can see those little air bubbles forming

Lots of small leaves as it’s near the last of my cake, but it’s a tea I know and love.

Original is a water that is made without a Sodastream, a la truth serum / complex syrup. This allows it to be easier to make and very concentratable.

Turtle dove with Original sips light and floral with a richness and slight oiliness. Immediate first impressions are positive here. The taste of the tea is quite present and fills the mouth. It’s sweet and the floral notes are vivid. I’m struck by the amount of thickness in a tea so light:

There is definitely texture without significant astringency. The tea melts in the mouth leaving behind tea oils that coat the mouth. Am I dreaming?

Now for some critique: the water is very present, but I could see it becoming fatiguing after a while. There’s a slight sharpness to the water, by no means excessive, but it does lean a bit forward. I think this is something many people will like, but I do notice it’s a bit “hot”. Perhaps the warm edition will be more calm in that respect.

I’m impressed right off the bat. Present but not too present, sweet but not too sweet, thick but not too thick, potent but not too potent. Well balanced on the forward side. 8.2/10

Note: all ratings-out-of-10 in this post are Session Ratings – more sessions would be needed to form a well-informed Water Rating.

Original Warm:

White2tea 2021 Fox down black tea 3.2g/50ml

The texture on this session feels a little flatter/more collapsed. Wet leaves smell of fruit leather, raisin and chocolate. On the second steep, a little thickness is building. The tea is sweet but there is a certain restrained or veiled quality. Velvety.

Immediately I think I would rather drink this tea with Original non-warm. The tea has nice structure but it doesn’t have that refreshing quality that I crave. I’d say Original non-warm is more refreshing. Perhaps 20% warm and 80% original could be a nice sweet spot.

I’m getting those bubbles I like. A good sign. I’m also feeling pretty calm while drinking these, which means these waters work well with the body.

As my distillation setup drips away in the background, tasting this water and tea, I’m feeling proud of how far handcrafted water for tea has come. I’m also very inspired to make my own waters again in due time.

7/10

Untitled:

2003 Hong Kong Henry conscientious prescription

This water is an updated version of what I last reviewed. I liked the old version very much and am excited to try the update. This is a water which contains calcium carbonate and therefore requires carbonated water to produce. This increases the labor involved but also increases the possibilities for the composition of the water – mainly a reduction in sulfate, chloride and sodium. Let’s see if it’s worth the trouble:

Wet leaf smells of old wood furniture, grandma’s closet, wet sand, and the like.

I find the tea made with this water extremely friendly and gentle, yet present. Immersive. There is a je ne sais quoi here. Buttery. Huge echoes of flavor. Can’t shake the sensation of butter, like I just ate bread and butter or buttered popcorn. I’ve noticed this with some of my own waters too.

Texture is a different kind than that of Original. With original, there was a nervous thickness and presence – with Untitled there is a calm, settled thickness and presence, with a structured hierarchy of flavors. First, a sweetness on the front of the tongue. Then, old woods on the sides traveling backward. Then, light tannins coating the mouth with buttered popcorn flavor. Then a deposit of aged fruit/citrus woody oils. Finally it all clears away into sweet buttery huigan (aftertaste). Empty cup aroma is nice too.

This is quite elegant, the qi is great, warmth and relaxation. I like this as much as the old version, but this one is definitely different. Very refined.

8.8/10

Untitled Warm:

Kettl tokujou sencha – 3.4g in 100ml shibo

A gorgeous sencha that rivals many gyokuro. I’ve actually made a couple waters for the fine people at Kettl to try, and got some positive feedback. If you’re in NYC, definitely visit their Brooklyn location!

I find it interesting that a warmer version of Untitled would be good for green tea, but I imagine it has something to do with a texture and umami focus.

As an aside, the smell of the steam of all of the waters is really clean – Arby has a great filter system and probably fewer VOCs in his water supply. I should really get an undersink RO. There is a salty smell to the steam, though- I wonder what it comes from.

Oh baby. Really umami-focused sencha experience. Not as much on the front of the mouth, all toward the rear and middle. Buttered snap peas, sweetness, thickness. Purity. For me, it’s impressive, but it’s not refreshing enough. Like with Original, I would rather use the regular version of Untitled.

This is still an elaborate, pure, direct and complex cup of sencha. On the second steep, that pure leaf/grass taste is coming through. Even a slight dryness that I like. Sweating – this is a lot of tea today! Impressive globular texture for sure. 300ml of sencha feeling like a very significant amount with this water!

7.5/10

I’ve noticed I’ve been engaged this whole time. With these waters, there’s always something new, each steep is dynamic, the tea goes to your core. With so many bottled and tap waters coming up short, these waters could change everything for many people who want to connect with their tea in that special elevated way.

Arby noted to me that the waters are all fairly close in total mineral content, so they are very well suited for blending. This allows you to tune the water to your liking, and experiment, all while being confident your tea sessions will be nice no matter what.

Water Review: Untitled by Empirical Water

I’m going to be doing a quick water review of Arby’s new recipe he sent out. This is called Untitled – there are multiple versions of it, this one being the most intense, designed for brewing in porcelain. I’ve been working on water too, but haven’t had the time to blog yet! I have been making waters of my own, and also putting together a framework of water understanding that has greatly deepened my connection with water and tea. I’m really excited about this water and that Arby is starting his own company, Empirical Water. I don’t know the composition of this one, so let’s go in blind!

White2Tea 2017 Year of the Rooster

6.7g/100ml gaiwan

Immediately on the first steep, there’s a sense of structure to the tea. There’s a softness and a clean open feeling. This is definitely a low sodium water! The flavor focus seems to be in the middle of the mouth, which is really interesting. Sweet, savory, with huigan.

One thing I notice is it’s not too sweet. On the front of the mouth where you would usually find sweetness with a previous recipe, there’s a more complex bitter savory flavor. Wonderful oils of concentrated puer extract, full of little fruits. There’s a nice power here without being overbearing. I can tell this water is dialed in.

The flavor arrives gradually as I take a sip, revealing different aspects slowly but not too slowly at all. There’s a great sequence to this water, it’s like a song, not a picture. It definitely is making strong tea – the highlight is menghai mushroom notes, and I imagine this would do perfectly for something like Yang Qing Hao or Bi Yun Hao older productions, as well as aged factory tea. The texture is really amazing, I’m sure Arby aerated this somewhat, which is something I should do more too.

As for qi, my body feels quite comfortable drinking this tea, no jitters even though this is very strong puer. My mouth feels fine too, just a layer of velvety tannins, perfectly appropriate to this kind of tea at this age. I noticed the tea really feels gentle in the mouth with a little bit of acidity, so I decided to test: The pH of the tea at steep 7 is 6.5. That is just on the acidic side of neutral, and shows that what I’m tasting can be measured empirically.

This water really behaves quite close to a natural water, which is exactly what I like to see. I feel like everyone making water right now has a slightly different angle, and it really brings to light the invisible truth that there is an endless variety of waters with an endless variety of characters. For me, it’s like tea was made to manifest that variety in the most beautiful way.

Session Rating: 8.2/10

Water Rating: 8/10

On Britas

Hey everyone! Long time, no blog. Hope everyone’s been enjoying their tea in the meantime – I know I have! I took a trip up to Setting Sun Tea Hut in Vermont, which has beautiful tea, an awesome experience, and great well water for tea – they don’t even have to filter it. There, we had tea with tetsubins, clay kettles (chaozhou and novak), and copper kettles. The differences in each were striking – I had never tried a tetsubin before. I am sure there is a reaction going on in there on the iron-water interface.

Something like this, and this might not be the only one.

In the above reaction, the iron from the kettle binds with the water and releases hydrogen ions. Interestingly, a similar thing happens in a Brita filter, the most popular water filter around.

I’ve been familiar with them for a long time, but only recently did I understand what a Brita filter does. If you have a TDS meter, you may notice that water run through a Brita has around 20% lower TDS reading, and has a more acidic pH. They curiously don’t advertise these two features – probably because “alkaline water” is believed to be better than acidic. But why and how does it do this to the water?

In addition to activated carbon, which improves the water’s taste, Britas contain ion exchange resin pellets. In this case, these are beads that specifically accept a calcium ion (Ca2+) and give off hydrogen ions (2H+). The result of this is twofold. First, the hardness of the water is reduced, due to reduced calcium. Second, the alkalinity of the water is also reduced, because (and this is what I just figured out) the acidic hydrogen ions are neutralized by the HCO3- buffer forming H2CO3, or carbonic acid.

I used to think this was a very mild and subtle change – after all, TDS only goes down 20% on average. But recently, I took very hard, 500 TDS spring water that scales aggressively when boiled, ran it through the Brita, and boiled it. And what did I find? No scale at all. I was shocked! This means that almost all the temporary hardness (calcium-bicarbonate) is taken out. The resulting tea was way different. With the unfiltered 500 TDS water, tea is thick and muted. After the Brita, the water measured only 220 TDS, and the tea was hollow and forward.

This is when I realized that Brita filters radically alter the mineral profile of water. They cause already forward waters to be more forward and hollow out/brighten up, and cause less-present waters to become thinner and milder, but also brighter. Now, don’t get me wrong, they can still make good tea – in fact, I had a great session with an older raw puer last week with Brita-filtered NYC (Brooklyn) tap water. However, it’s definitely worth knowing that Britas don’t just make your tea taste better, they radically alter the mineral composition – and not always for the better. It’s worth testing for yourself – what do you like? Brita, or something like a Waterdrop that doesn’t change mineral content at all? (EDIT – waterdrop now reduces hardness…..) Or even a blend? I personally am still alternating between many different options in order to learn more.