Tag Archives: gongfu

The Humble Tea Pet

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I saw my first tea pet the first time that I saw someone brew gongfu tea. It was a smooth stone turtle, serenely resting on the bamboo brewing tray, the tea flowing gently off its back as the tea master doused it with a rolled oolong. “A gift for the tea gods”, he said, or something like that, and I could sense the beautiful humility of such a gesture. Since that day I have met many tea pets, from nosey water buffaloes to tiny stoic scholars, and they continue to be a small clay reminder that tea is meant to be shared.

If you have never encountered a tea pet, let me introduce you! Quite common in China and Taiwan, these little clay statues sit with the tea equipment and await a bath. They come in many shapes and sizes; often they take the form of a traditional good fortune animal like the pig, turtle, dragon, dog, or water buffalo, but sometimes one will find a lucky cabbage, a log, whimsical spider feet, or a tea master of old such as Lu Yu.

There’s even special versions of these unique items which are interactive. If the clay is carved just right, sometimes the water flowing over the mouth of the tea pet will form cute little bubbles. There are plastic-like tea pets that change color with hot water like the toys I used to get in cereal boxes. However, despite these fun mechanics, it’s important to understand that a tea pet is more than just decoration!

When preparing tea in the gongfu (essentially “with skill”) style, there’s usually a lot of water thrown about. Firstly the pot and cups must be warmed, then sometimes the leaves will be rinsed, and when the first infusion is steeping, some extra water is often poured over the pot to seal in its heat. At each of these stages, the used hot water or tea is poured out into a bowl or onto the table itself. Rather than simply waste that water, however, some can be poured on the head of a tea pet sitting nearby. Why would you do this? It’s certainly extraneous to the act of preparing the tea! Each tea devotee may have their own reasons, but in my experience this ritual serves the dual purpose of cultivating mindfulness and intention.

Firstly the action of allowing extra drops to fall on a specific target keeps the mind present on every act of making tea, including the rather mundane process of disposing of water down the drain which might otherwise be unconscious. And secondly, this gesture serves as a reminder of the intention of kindness toward others, even if only making tea for one’s self. “Sharing” some of the tea with the tea pet, perhaps even the last drops of each infusion, can give the practitioner of the leaf a sense of connection with all of the beings in the world.

With the extent of the Internet these days it’s much easier to find a Chinese-made tea pet than it once was, but I encourage everyone to find a tea pet that suits them from any source. A few of my favorite “tea pets” are just small artifacts made of clay, stone, crystal, and plastic that were never intended to be used in a tea service, and they perform the task quite admirably! Making a tea service your own is the highest form of tea art, in my opinion, and connecting with a tea pet is just one way to bring that experience to life. I hope you find a tiny friend to share your next pot!

How Much Tea?

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With all of these posts about my tea making process, I realized that I hadn’t ever said much about the amount of tea that I’m using. Time and Temperature are very important factors when making tea, as well as the tools you are using. But the amount of leaf in your pot can have just as much of an effect on the finished product and the steps you take to get there.

My general guideline for a 150-200ml pot or gaiwan is about 4g of leaf. Ah, but what if you don’t have a scale? In fact, I almost never use a scale myself, so not to worry, with some experience you can make a pretty good guess.

The first rule of thumb is to just cover the bottom of your brewing vessel with a layer of leaves until barely any of the surface is showing. This is almost always an accurate measure for a gaiwan (of any size!). Secondly, you need to think about the tea leaves themselves. This is the part that trips up even the seasoned tea devotee.

Why the difficulty with this measure? Because different teas are dried differently. A full leaf white tea takes up about 5 times the volume of a rolled oolong. And a small chunk of Puer can weigh as much as a whole package of black tea. A finely cut Japanese green tea can weigh twice as much as a green Chinese leaf.

To help with this conundrum, I’ve taken photos of different teas, each measured to 4g for comparison.

Tai Ping Hou Kui, a "Fluffy" Green

Tai Ping Hou Kui, a “Fluffy” Green

The key to getting the right amount of leaf is just considering the density of a tea before you brew it. These are the density categories I use: Fluffy, Fine, Twisted, Rolled, and Dense.

Fluffy.

Bai Mu Dan, a "Fluffy" White

Bai Mu Dan, a “Fluffy” White


Full leaf white tea, many full leaf Chinese greens (except Liu’An Guapian), some Chinese (generally Yunnan golden needle) black tea, a few oolongs (Bai Hao).

Method:
Use more leaves than you think.

Fine.

Ping Shui Ri Zhu, a "Fine" Green

Ping Shui Ri Zhu, a “Fine” Green


Japanese greens, any broken tea (a damaged full leaf tea or tea bag tea no matter how high quality the bag supposedly is).

Method:
The trick here is to use more leaves than you think but brew them very gently. Use cooler water around 70c or lower and keep infusion times very short (5 seconds to 1 minute).

Twisted.

Bao Zhong, a Twisted Oolong.

Bao Zhong, a Twisted Oolong.


A few Chinese greens (notably Liu’An Guapian), many Oolongs from southern China and Taiwan (not rolled into balls), some full leaf twisted black tea (notably no. 18, Sun Moon Lake, Qi Men, Dian Hong, Darjeeling first flush). I also put loose Puer in this category.

Method:
A medium amount of leaf, just covering the bottom of your infusing vessel.

Rolled.

Ali Shan Jin Xuan, a Rolled Oolong.

Ali Shan Jin Xuan, a Rolled Oolong.


Most Taiwan oolong (except Bai Hao and Bao Zhong), a few Chinese greens that are rolled into balls (except Zhucha/gunpowder).

Method:
A small amount of leaf, not quite covering the bottom of your infusing vessel. These teas tend to expand a lot (I’m always surprised how huge they get) and if the leaves become so packed that the tea cannot move around, the flavors will be blunt, strong, and boring.

Dense.

Lao Shu Bing Cha, a Dense Sheng Puer

Lao Shu Bing Cha, a Dense Sheng Puer


Brick Puer, gunpowder green (Zhucha).

Method:
While it’s certainly possible to use a small volume of leaf for these teas and steep for 2-3 minutes, I prefer to use a medium amount and do very fast infusions (5 seconds to 1 minute).

Summary

As you might be able to tell from my notes, the more leaves (by weight), the faster and stronger the tea will infuse. Using lots of leaves just means that you may need to decrease the infusion time (or the temperature) to keep the tea from becoming overly strong. If you steep a tea for 10 seconds and it’s unpleasantly bitter (something that happens to me all the time), then you really just have too many leaves in the pot. Similarly, if steeping a tea for 3 minutes gives you no flavor at all, you may want to add some more leaf.

As with any “rules” surrounding tea brewing, keep in mind that these are just suggestions based on my experience. Your taste may vary considerably and so it’s vital that you experiment to find the time, temperature, and quantity that fits you best.

Ways to Pour a Gaiwan

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First I should say, do you know what a Gaiwan (蓋碗) is? Literally, it means “lidded bowl”, so there’s not a lot of confusion. Sometimes it’s also called a “Gaibei” (lidded cup) or “zhong” (Cantonese, if I’m not mistaken). They are made in different sizes and materials, but generally are between 100-200ml and made from white porcelain consisting of a saucer, a bowl and a lid. The porcelain means that heat will dissipate quickly, making it ideal for teas that are best infused with cooler water, such as greens.

In ancient China, tea was sipped directly from the bowl while the lid was used as a strainer. While it’s possible to find teahouses that still serve this way (I’ve seen it still done in Sichuan), most use of the gaiwan now is as a sort of teapot, allowing the leaves to infuse before straining into a cup (or pitcher) with the lid.

As I’ve often told people learning to use a gaiwan for the first time, straining the tea is similar to straining pasta or vegetables from a saucepan by tipping the lid slightly to allow water to leave and retaining what’s inside. And just like with a saucepan, the water inside is quite hot, so you need to take certain precautions.

To that end there are several ways to pour a gaiwan. Probably the easiest is the two-handed method: one hand holds the cup by its rim and pours while the other hand holds the lid by its top nub at a slight angle to keep the leaves in. I want to emphasize holding the cup by the rim and the lid by the nub to protect your hands from the heat.

gaiwan_two_handed

A more common technique is to hold the gaiwan edges with one hand, using the thumb and middle finger on the rim and the index finger or knuckle on the lid.

gaiwan_one_handed

The third method that I use is more advanced in that you are much more at risk of dropping things. I find it most useful when infusing tea gongfu style in a gaiwan, meaning that the water is very hot and isn’t given time to cool before straining. In the other methods, sometimes even the rim is too hot to touch, so it’s possible to hold the entire gaiwan by gripping its saucer and lid between the thumb and the middle finger. Since the lid must still be tipped, this requires just enough pressure to avoid dropping anything, but not so much that the lid will go shooting away from the cup! In this method it’s also best to make sure the palm of your hand is on the side of the gaiwan while pouring, or else the steam escaping from the back of the lid can be very unpleasant.

gaiwan_one_handed_saucer

While all this may seem like much more work than simply using a teapot, a gaiwan has two significant advantages that no teapot can claim. Firstly, the opening of the bowl is so large that it’s easy to see the leaves and the color of the liquor as they infuse. Especially when first infusing a new tea, this gives you a good way to judge the time of the infusion. Because of this, I would never suggest purchasing a gaiwan without a white interior. Secondly, a gaiwan can pour out its contents within a few seconds, much faster than any teapot, meaning that when you have decided that the infusion time is up, your tea will be poured and ready without any additional steeping that might occur during a long pour.

tphk_and_turtle

I highly recommend the humble gaiwan as a tool for beautifully making a cup of tea, especially for those new to judging infusion time. The methods listed above are just suggestions based on my own experience, so feel free to find your own way to pour.

Keemun from the UK

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Keemun Mao Feng

Darkly sweet, like a deeply ripe blood orange. An aroma of very dark chocolate with a touch of cinnamon. There’s a subtle dryness and roughness at the end that is typical of some Qi Men teas.

Qi Men (aka: “Keemun”) tea (祁門红茶) is a black tea (“red tea” in China) made in Anhui province in Eastern China. It is a style that has been relatively famous in the West for quite a while and is often blended with other, stronger leaves to produce concoctions like the English Breakfast tea. As with any harvest, though, there’s a spectrum of quality that can be had and most of the leaves exported for teabags are literally the bottom of the barrel. A Mao Feng (毛峰) pick is considered a pretty high grade and should have entirely full leaves, gently twisted into spirals.

This tea I purchased from an artisan tea and coffee shop in Brighton in the UK. While the staff didn’t know a tremendous amount of tea information, I appreciated that their tea was well sourced and well served.

At the shop they used a kind of plastic mug with a drain on the bottom for serving, so the leaves went right in with the water and then the infusion was strained out of the bottom into a ceramic mug when ready. I’m not a big fan of plastic for anything tea-related, but this method did have several advantages which I think many methods of tea infusing lack.

Firstly, the leaves were not separate from the water during steeping. Probably the most common way to infuse tea of any sort in the West is to use some sort of separation tool, such as a teabag, tea ball, or strainer. While there is quite a bit of experimentation ongoing with these methods in the form of different fabrics and materials, shape and size, ultimately there is always part of the water which is not coming into direct contact with the leaves. In my experience this never produces quite the same effect as having loose tea leaves swirling around in your pot or mug.

The second advantage of these draining mugs was that after the infusion time was up, it’s easy to quickly drain the whole thing into your cup. This means that no tea remains steeping in water while you drink your first cup, which would otherwise almost invariably produce a bitter second pour. The speed was also important since a slow-pouring teapot can make timing your infusion much more challenging than it needs to be.

Due to the plastic, I find it hard to recommend these devices in general, but you could do a lot worse, and the above points are definitely worth keeping in mind for your own infusion experiments.

Overall I’m very happy with this tea and pleased that there are more shops taking unflavored tea seriously. Thank you, Naked Tea!