What is this tea's Harmony Code ? (3/28/2012 Cupping experiments on white teas)

This morning, I invited Jackson to cup White Tea samples with me. We have one YinZhen (silver needle), 4 White Peony, and one ShouMei.
We plan to have two rounds of cupping. Round 1, we will use traditional cupping sets, measure 3 g / 150 ml / 210 and steep for 5 minutes for all 6 teas.

When time is up, we got all teas poured out and have our cupping.
Honestly, only the lower grade ShouMei and White Peony are "drinkable", the rest 4 teas are so astringent, especially YinZhen.


Round 2, we are using glass Harmony Teapots for cupping. This time, we set the water temperature to 175. Still measure 3 g each tea sample, with 250 ml of heated water at 175. We don't set steeping time, instead, we focus on the infusions of each tea with our keen observation...when the leaf in the harmony teapot settled (unfurled and set on the bottom), we then stop the tea for further steeping...

Each tea accomplished the steeping differently... YinZhin almost settled within 1 minute of steeping., higher grades BaiMuDan (White Peony) takes about 4-1/2 till 5 minutes., while the lower grades Peony and ShouMei takes about 5 - 6 minutes to fully settled down. Amazingly, the liquor color of each tea from Round 1 and Round 2, are quite close...yet the taste and the flavor are so much different... These white teas are deliciously sweet...actually. We got better idea for the adjustment on water temperature to be applied...if we are to have round 3.

Harmony Teapot (sku#TE-046) is very useful for the experiments. The pitcher is easy to pour tea for participants to taste tea, and its lid becomes a coaster for holding the drainer with wet leaves for our examining and study.


Have fun with your tea, try to search the Harmony Code of each particular tea. The right amount of tea leaf, the right temperature of heated water, the right steeping time. Harmonize these 3 T, a perfect cup of tea will be right on.