Tasting tea from bowls

The Northern Teaist wrote a great post fairly recently on brewing tea in bowls.

This is another kind of bowl brewing technique that works well to drink and evaluate teas against each other, and can be adapted for several people drinking together.

As it is easy and effective, I recommend this technique for people who may want a simpler “tea ceremony” that requires no special equipment. I highly recommend this method.

This is all you need – a spoon, a drinking cup and a bowl for each tea that you are drinking. If you have more people, increase the number of drinking cups to ideally one cup per person per tea (so two people drinking three teas would have six cups in total).

Here I have measured out 5g of the Honey Black Tea, and roughly 5.5g of the High Mountain Oolong.

I filled up the bowls to roughly the same level with hot water.

If serving more people, you can use larger bowls and more tea. The amount of tea is just a guide, please adjust to personal preference, and you can also add more water if it gets bitter.

Use the spoons to pour the tea into the cups, and you can smell both sides of the spoon to appreciate the aroma. This worked exceptionally well with both of these teas.

All that is left is to enjoy the tea, refill the bowls with more water, and drink as much as you want with the same tea leaves. I found this method very easy and also very effective. The flavours of both the teas come out in all their complexity and richness, in aroma and taste.

For a more advanced technique, have a look at my post on gong fu cha.

Drinking Tea with the Farmers

In buying directly from farmers, we were invited to drink tea with them.

Everybody has a different style of gong fu tea brewing, here is a version that is close to what we experienced in the tea mountains.

Below I will describe two distinguishing features of the way that our farmers drink tea gong fu style, which differ from trends in gong fu style that I have seen here in the West. It is a bit different from how I drink gong fu style as well.

This is Chessers Tea’s Roasted Honey Black Tea

The tea tray means that when pouring water and tea over the teapot, or when discarding any rinses, the water will flow into the tea tray. The teapot is made of yixing clay. Being made of porous clay, this teapot keeps heat very well, and the pattina on the outside improves over time as tea and water is poured over it. As a few seconds difference can change the strength of the tea, the serving jug on the left ensures that all the teacups have an equal concentration of flavour. The teacups are small as  there will be multiple infusions, each very short, often lasting under a minute.

Pour in water to preheat the teapot.

Preheat the serving jug, or chahai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These cups are used to smell the aroma before drinking the tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preheat the serving cups.

Put some tea in the teapot. Here, I use much less than our farmers would have used but use the quantity that fits your taste. If in doubt, err on the side of less leaf, and build up as your taste changes. I actually ended up adding more a little later.

Re-fill the teapot with a steady fine stream of hot but not boiling water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the desired time, say 45 seconds for this tea, pour out the tea into the chahai.

Serve the tea into the smelling cups, and then pour into each serving cup. Before drinking, smell from the smelling cups. I find waving the cup in the air helps to bring out the aroma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For subsequent infusions, pour directly into the serving cups, increasing the steeping time by a few seconds or so.

Farmers are highly experienced tea drinkers and so use very high quantities of leaf. As people become more experienced, they gradually like tea stronger, and as our farmers have been drinking tea for 20-30 years, their tea is brewed powerfully. Added to this is the consideration that when brewing tea with a lot of leaf, it takes much more skill to make all the leaves open at the same rate, which is one of the objectives in gong fu style tea brewing. This takes a lot of practice to achieve.

Some people like to use scales to measure a certain amount of tea leaves, and timers to measure steeping times so as to get consistent results, or to try to hone down brewing parameters until the tea tastes at its best. Our farmers use approximate measurements of tea leaves and approximate timings. Personally I also prefer to do things approximately because it feels more natural.

What do you think is the ideal way to drink tea? Do you ever drink tea gong fu style?

Gong Fu Tea in Pictures

Here is one approach to the “Chinese Tea Ceremony”, otherwise known as gong fu tea, in pictures.

This is Chessers Tea’s Nantou Loose Green Tea.

On the left is a gaiwan, or lidded cup, and two teacups. Everything is small because you rebrew the same tea many times, and each time, it tastes a little different. You don’t have to use a gaiwan to drink tea gong fu style. Anything small preferably with a lid can work.

The quantity of tea leaves is up to you. It’s nice to experiment and see what works best. As time goes by, you will find that you like your tea stronger.

Each time you brew, pour slowly in a fine steady stream. For green tea, use water that is hot but not boiling (70-80C).

Tilt the gaiwan lid slightly to block the leaves, and hold it on the edges and lid as shown. When pouring in two cups, fill the first halfway, then fill the second completely, and then top up the other half of the first. This should give them both roughly the same concentration.

Repeat several times, and enjoy how the leaves expand, and the flavours intensify and change. As this is green tea, leaving the lid off is fine.

Green tea leaves fully expanded.

 

 

Why get into tea? Part 2

• It is good for health

The NHS (British National Health Service) wrote an article about a study that was conducted by the peer reviewed journal, Food Research International that said that supermarket economy teas often have higher levels of flouride than other teas, and that therefore it is advisable to limit your intake of these teas. However, with high quality teas there is no concern over flouride levels – your teeth do need some flouride to help prevent tooth decay.

The NHS also says tentatively that catechins in green and possibly also black tea may help to lower cholesterol. The same source showed that green tea has shown to help to lower blood pressure.

Overall, tea is good for you, contributing to a healthy lifestyle.

• Tea maintains energy levels

I have found that as tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that reduces stress and promotes relaxation, and high quantities of anti-oxidants to slow caffeine’s absorption, tea has made me able to experience energy from the caffeine, without experiencing a crash or caffeine jitters. It is just a constant, steady, and relaxed alertness.

• Gong Fu Tea is a nice way to entertain people

Teas from Taiwan have diverse flavours, which are made more diverse again by how you brew them. Pouring out many small cups of tea for guests is a nice way to entertain people, and is in the spirit of the origins of gong fu tea. In the past, tea would have been prepared for guests elsewhere and then brought in to them, but in preparing tea gong fu style today, you can continually give your guests more refreshments, without having to leave them.

• Multiple steeping is good for working from home

Finally, if you have work to do that ties you to a desk, gong fu tea is a lovely way to give you something to enjoy while working. Every new cup tastes a little different, and just as gong fu tea can entertain others, I have found it very effective in maintaining my concentration. Drinking tea in this way means that you drink many cups over a period of time, and in this way encourages you to keep going.

If I’ve convinced you – have a look at our range of high quality teas, sourced by us directly from farms in Taiwan – www.chessers-tea.com/products

The image was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Image attribution: By Gary Stevens (Flickr: Gaiwans) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons