Gaiwan Gongfu Style Tea Brewing

[Wholemeal Crank]

Another trip back to wing hop fung, and now I have a very workable gongfu setup. Today I'm using the small yixing teapot, because it's smaller than my smallest gaiwan, and I planned a long series of infusions to 'get to the bottom' of my Norbu white bud sheng pu-erh.

Here's the setup:

One small teapot, four teacups that each can hold the full volume of the teapot, and one strainer, on a plate for the spillovers (looked at the tea trays but haven't sprung for one yet).

I rinsed the pot, added the leaves, rinsed the leaves, then brewed the first four infusions in a row, pouring each one out into a cup, then let all cool briefly before drinking them. After a few minutes break, I rinsed the leaves again very briefly (didn't do this the first time and the next steeping after a 5 minute break was bitter and astringent), poured of the rinse water, and again brewed the four infusions in a row. The bowl shaped cups allow the tea to cool quicker than the deeper cups I was using before.

So far, I am up to 16 infusions and still getting nice tea. This is much the best setup yet.

[Richard Kilgore]

Very attractive set up, WmC. I like those tasting cups. Are they as thin-walled as they look?

And I can see where a more accurate pouring teapot--as in, the pot that actually gets heated on the stove--would also be very handy, along with the fancy drainboards that are set off to one side and below the gaiwan display. Many small infusions in a tiny teapot or small gaiwan with water poured from the basic revere ware teapot means many larger spills of water on the counter.

While there are good reasons to consider another water kettle solution, avoiding spills is pretty much not only impossible, but not necessarily desirable. It's helpful to be able to pour hot water over the top of a brewing Yixing pot and/or to have it sitting in a puddle of hot water. So try simply putting your Yixing of whatever size in a bowl, any bowl - cereal bowl, soup bowl - anything that will comfortably accommodate it. You may be able to find a Yixing bowl made expressly for this purpose at wing hop fung. That's what I use when brewing tea at my cutting board instead of my tea table.

[Wholemeal Crank]

The lack of graceful pouring from the teakettle is not only an issue with the yixing pots, although this did finally inspire me to consider replacing the kettle. I'm not the most naturally coordinated person and have splashed and occasionally burned myself while pouring water into measuring cups for non-tea-related recipes too.

[Richard Kilgore]

What's the very least you need to try gong fu cha brewing with a gaiwan?

Not very much.

A gaiwan of about 100 - 150 ml is good. Smaller is okay, but hard to find. Larger becomes difficult to handle.

A bowl large enough to accommodate the gaiwan and the tea and water over flow.

Something to strain the tea poured from the gaiwan into a cup. This could be an infuser used otherwise in a cup.

A cup (or cups if you are sharing)large enough to hold the tea liquor from the gaiwan.

A way to heat water. Water kettle. Sauce pan in a pinch.

Same if you are using a Yixing clay teapot instead of a gaiwan.

At any rate, that's how I started doing it.

[nakji]

Interesting, Richard. Can you walk us through the basic steps of brewing a cup gong fu style? Right now I'm using a western-style coffee mug and a glass jug for brewing my teas, as I've been holding off buying any special equipment until I know more about what teas I enjoy drinking. Can you gong fu brew any type of tea? If so, could you walk us through a few examples?

[Wholemeal Crank]

Very attractive set up, WmC. I like those tasting cups. Are they as thin-walled as they look?

I forgot to answer this question in my next post. They are, and that was part of the reason to select them. They help the freshly brewed tea to cool more quickly to drinking temperature, which helps a lot in the first quick-infused rounds. By the time I've done the fourth infusion, the first is likely cool enough to drink. Impatience is the only reason to use the four cups like I have set up here.

And I'll take a crack at the gongfu-walk-through question. As I understand it so far, the benefit of brewing a tea like a pu-erh gong fu style are that different flavors infuse from the tea at different times. So infusion by infusion, you separately enjoy all the possible flavors from that tea, which get mingled and sometimes lost in a single larger infusion. Also, especially with pu-erh, the compression means that the outer leaves of a compressed chunk will be fully steeped before the inner leaves have opened fully. Oolongs also benefit from this; green and white teas may, although jasmines and other perfumed teas will lose a lot after the first couple of infusions; and black teas seem meant to give their flavor quicker so give less interesting variation done this way.

Because you're going to be brewing up a lot of infusions from one batch of tea (I've gotten 16 infusions from one particularly nice oolong, and 20+ from the best pu-erhs that made me want to keep going), you want a large proportion of leaf to water, and as I discussed above, unless you're sharing with several people, a small pot or gaiwan or cup helps to limit the total volume to something drinkable without bladder augmentation (brewing two ounce batches in a small gaiwan or yixing will yield 32 ounces after 16 infusions). A small scale also helps especially with the puerhs, to get the quantities similar when the density of the compressed tea can vary so much.

In theory you could do this with a tea ball in a mug, but the leaves need a lot of room to expand and it's hard to find a strainer or tea ball that will allow you to fill 50% or more of a very small brewing volume with loosely packed leaves. You could do the leaves loose in a mug but then have to be very careful about pouring off the hot liquor while leaving the leaves behind. The small yixing pot with the strainer built into the spout is perfectly designed for this; a gaiwan, which has a base, cup, and lid, allows you to do this simply by picking it all up, tilting the lid to create an opening that lets out water but not leaves, and the shaped of the lid and base help keep them cool enough at the raised centers to keep your fingers from burning as you do so.

So...boil up your water (or bring to lower temperature for a tea that prefers it cooler). Preheat the brewing container (yixing, gaiwan, other pot or mug) with one volume of water, let sit a minute, then pour out the water. This helps keep the brewing temperature more constant.

Now add your tea: I like about 1 gram of puerh per ounce of water, I see some people using more like 2 grams per ounce. Add to the brewing container. Add one volume of water, swirl for 10-20 seconds, and discard the rinse water, keeping the tea in the pot. I have read in a few places that this rinse is mostly for puerhs that can get pretty dusty as they're aged. Let the leaves rest a minute or so, to allow them to soak up the remaining water clinging to their leaves. Now they're ready to infuse for drinking.

Now start brewing: add water, let infuse your desired time, drain/strain the water into another cup to drink, and add more water for the next infusion. As the infusions go on, the brewing times should be longer; if you're not keeping the kettle up to temperature with continuous heating, your infusion temperature will be dropping too, so you also need to account for that with extended brewing times.

Probably because I use less tea than Richard, I start with brewings of 10 seconds, and go from there: 10", 10", 15", 20", 20", 30", 30", 45". 45", 1', 1', 90", 90", 2', 3', 4', etc. If the infusions start to taste too strong, shorten the next one; too weak, lengthen the next one more.

And that's it.

Now to sit back and see if I have 'gotten it'....

[Richard Kilgore]

Interesting, Richard. Can you walk us through the basic steps of brewing a cup gong fu style? Right now I'm using a western-style coffee mug and a glass jug for brewing my teas, as I've been holding off buying any special equipment until I know more about what teas I enjoy drinking. Can you gong fu brew any type of tea? If so, could you walk us through a few examples?

I'll try to answer this and do a walk through based on the least you'll need to add to your current set up for brewing. Later we can get into upgrades, but I wanted to reduce this to the easiest and least expensive way to get started, and your situation is a great example. As we go along, I'll also provide some links to related posts in the Coffee & Tea forum that may be helpful.

So let me ask a few of questions first.

Do you strain your tea when pouring it from your glass jug into your mug? If not, how are you keeping the leaves from flowing into your mug?

What teas do you enjoy so far?

Do you have any very small bowls or a traditional western 6 ounce tea cup?

Do you have a French Press for making coffee?

What's your tap water like? Does it taste great straight from the tap? Do you filter it?

As far as what kinds of teas can be brewed gong fu cha style - it is primarily done with Oolongs and Pu-erhs, but I do it with Chinese green teas and even Chinese red teas. One gong fu red tea I had been brewing western style with a low leaf to water ration was a revelation brewed in a gaiwan with a high leaf to water ratio and very short infusion times. I have never tried it with Indian teas or those from Sri Lanka, but will get around to experimenting with those, too. It does not work well with Japanese green teas; while you can brew them western style, a traditional Japanese kyusu is the brewing instrument of choice, with which you can usually get 3 - 5 infusions.

[nakji]

Wholemeal Crank, what excellent and detailed notes. I'm starting to get a feel for the process, although I can see I'll have to invest in some more technical method of measurement than the spoon and cup I'm currently using!

Speaking of the set-up, here's a picture:

Do you strain your tea when pouring it from your glass jug into your mug? If not, how are you keeping the leaves from flowing into your mug?

As you can see from the picture, my current set-up is pretty basic. That being said, my jug does have a barrier that comes down and keeps most of the leaves out. More problematic, I suspect, is its capacity - about 600 ml.

What teas do you enjoy so far?

Before coming to China, I would have said "oolong and jasmine", with oolong having a more traditional toasty flavour profile than the Tie Guan Yin. Having tried both Tie Guan Yin and a Pu'er, I quite like them both, and would like to try more types of these teas.

Do you have any very small bowls or a traditional western 6 ounce tea cup?

Uh...yes, and no. I have a 200 ml white coffee cup, and some small-ish bowls I've been using for dumpling dip vessels. And some sake cups, which are a decent size, but are black, which doesn't so much for appreciating the colour of the tea. It's easy enough for me to acquire plain white or glass cups cheaply, though, considering where I am.

Do you have a French Press for making coffee?

No.

What's your tap water like? Does it taste great straight from the tap? Do you filter it?

Chinese tap water, I'm told, is not potable. I have spring water delivered, and the "hot" spout on the water machine keeps it at a consistent 71^o C. I also have a kettle.

[Richard Kilgore]

At the most basic you will need a gaiwan, a strainer...and a small measuring cup would help with the water quantities, but it's not necessary. No need for a scale to get started, and you can count out the seconds if you don't have a digital timer of some sort.

A porcelain gaiwan of about 100 - 150 ml will be fine. Plain, white ceramic. Inexpensive and it will be good for all Chinese teas. A bowl to put the gaiwan in, to catch the splash and spill over. (Don't worry about a Yixing pot. Lots of fakes and hard to tell what's what. I have seen many hundreds and handled dozens - at least - in person, been given knowledgeable guidance and have about 20 of them of varying quality and qualities, and it's still difficult. Complexities upon complexities. And porcelain is neutral and the best way to initially evaluate a tea any way.)

A small metal tea strainer should be easy to find there and dirt cheap. One with a little handle attached to a round frame with a screen in the middle.

Small cheap white cups - about 150 ml if you are drinking alone, maybe 40 ml if sharing, is good. Or you could use your white coffee cup if drinking alone or your little bowls if sharing. If sharing, you need a "fair cup" of about 200 ml, which is like a little creamer or syrup pitcher; glass or ceramic is okay, but I like to see the tea liquor in glass. You pour the tea liquor out of the gaiwan into the fair cup so that the tea liquor mixes thoroughly and everyone gets the same solution. You should have no trouble finding a fair cup, or you could use a cup or small glass you have on hand - the little fair cup just pours better and is less messy in my experience, but messy is part of gong fu cha.

As an alternative to a fair cup - but I don't recommend this as a way to start out - is to put your little cups in a bowl and then pour out of the gaiwan into the cups, running back and forth so that everyone gets a fair amount from every layer of the infusion. The bowl catches your misses. Like I said, not an easy way to start out.

Water quality is very important, but start with what you have - spring water, which may or may not be optimal. How does it taste to you? If you like the taste, it may be fine. If it tastes off or flat, then that's what your tea will get. The temp coming out of the hot water spigot may give your kettle a head start, but you may want to taste check it against the cold water to see if there is a taste difference. If you have an instant read thermometer, good; if not there are other ways to estimate the temp once the water is boiled.

Does this give you enough for a start? Once you have your basic equipment and some tea we can do a walk through.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Not sure what topic this belongs in, so I'll post it here.

Today I went to the tea brewing class at Tea Habitat. It was quite interesting. The proprietess, Imen, taught the class, and in 90 minutes, she discussed the history of chinese teas, brewing theory and technique, and demonstrated gong fu style as well as simpler brewing techniques, and clearly showed how much difference in the tea you could obtain by different brewing times and temperatures.

She said she aimed for about 3 grams of tea while using an 8-10 oz gaiwan for the brewing; and she emphasized the importance of looking at the tea, stirring each infusion with the lid of the gaiwan to judge the texture as well as color of the brew, in deciding how long to infuse. And then, adjust the infusion time and temp per the taste of the previous infusion. I was particularly interested to note that she used water from an electric teakettle for the different teas we tasted, and primarily adjusted the brewing temperature by pouring the water from the kettle at different rates to allow different degrees of cooling before it reached the tea in the gaiwan. And sometime she let it sit in the fair cup a bit to cool before pouring it from there into the gaiwan.

We tried a commercial dan cong oolong, a very delicate green tea that seemed on the border between green and white, and a black tea. Another interesting tidbit was her note that the scent of the dry tea doesn't always give much more information than whether the tea is fresh or stale, and we noted that the oolong tea had very little odor as it was first passed around, but suddenly became lovely and fragrant when it was placed in the damp, prewarmed gaiwan and allowed to sit for a minute or three. Similarly, the black tea was not strongly scented until it warmed up and suddenly there was the almost overwhelming chocolate aroma that I've been reading about but not yet teasted in the Keemum teas I've tried. The chocolate disappeared in the brewed tea--it was lovely and fruity and toasty and dark, but not chocolatey like the earlier odor from the warmed but not yet brewed leaves.

I'd highly recommend the sessions to any tea fanciers in the area.

When I start brewing the oolongs I bought today (two different Dan Cong Oolongs), I'll post about them in the oolong topic.

I was also relieved that she still admits some difficulty with brewing green teas--they're something she can usually 'not mess up' but still difficult to optimize--since I'm having a fair bit of trouble with the 'not messing up' stage myself right now.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Wholemeal Crank (log)

[LuckyGirl]

I had my first experiences with gongfu tea service and a tea house this past weekend. My husband and I were in Washington D.C for a long weekend. He had a work day Friday so I looked for tea houses/shops to check out on my own during the day. I found a few places and settled on Ching Ching Cha based mostly on instinct.

I didn't know what to expect since this was my first tea house experience but I couldn't have been more pleased from the moment I walked through the door. The place had a great feel to it and it seemed to offer some sanctuary from the endless rain of the past few days.

I chose to have the tea lunch and asked the fellow taking care of me for help in selecting a tea. He suggested that since it was my first visit I choose an oolong tea because of the special tea service they use for oolongs. I opted for their orchid oolong selection. I had no idea how the tea was going to be served but as soon as the fellow brought out the tea service I recognized it (from the reading I have done thus far) and gongfu. So, he explained the process to me and showed me what to do and left me on my own. My first few sips of the tea I was thinking about the characters and qualities of it and was surprised that I didn't get any floral notes, which is what I had expected, when all of the sudden these perfumey, floral notes just bloomed in my mouth. This was a second or two after my first sips, while I had no tea in my mouth. It was a really neat experience, unlike any other I have had in tasting anything else. I could literally feel this flavor blooming in my mouth and it was wild! The first few sips of the tea had been sort of flat but once these floral notes developed in my mouth I enjoyed the tea. I don't recall how many steepings I did, maybe 5 or 6, but what I didn't realize at the time was how much more there probably was to be had from those tea leaves.

I enjoyed my experience there so much that I asked my husband to join me for a Saturday lunch at another tea room in the D.C. area. We got to one of the other places on my list and it was nothing like what I was expecting. It wasn't so much of a tea house as a counter service restaurant with various teas and a variety of Asian dishes and soups. It is probably a great place and they had a house full of people who seemed to be enjoying themselves but it was not the experience I was after so my husband returned with me to Ching Ching Cha.

We both had the tea lunch and I chose a puerh tea and he choose an Alishan Oolong, Supreme. We figured we would use the occasion of being there with full tea service to try some special teas.

The puehr I choose was a ten year and that is all I know about it. I did not see the tea before it was put into the pot (yixing pot, gongfu style)so I do not know if it was from a cake or loose. I think it must have been somewhat compressed though based on how the leaves were so slow to unfurl. It went through several steepings and there were still leaves that were somewhat closed with dry patches in the middle (that I could see after I unrolled them out of curiosity). I had not much idea what to expect from this tea other than the general things I have read about puehrs. It was deep and strong. I can see why it is suggested as a tea to have with rich or fried foods as it could help cut through fat and richness. I guess it was far mustier than I expected as it was so musty I had a hard time tasting much else. I don't know if that is normal for the tea, if I was very sensitive to the mustiness since it was my first experience with it or if this was an exceptionally musty tea. None the less, I drank several steepings of it but I wouldn't say that I particularly enjoyed it.

On to my husbands tea which was also served gongfu in a yixing pot, the Alishan Oolong, Supreme. Again, I had no idea what to expect from this tea. I was blown away by how tanniny it was, so much so that it was hard to get past. I didn't get much from this tea in terms of different notes. It seemed to lack any complexity of flavors but at the same time it was very robust in body. I got tannin and maybe tastes of leather with some nuttiness. Those leather and nutty flavors were very deep but I guess I was expecting some other notes. Does any of that make sense? I was thinking that we may have let the first steeping go too long (we were told let it go for a minute) and maybe that was what accounted for the heavy tannins so we made the next steeping much shorter but it was just as tanniny (is that a word?). In fact, it wasn't until the 5th or 6th steeping that it started to loose those harsh tannins. I took the tea leaves with me a steeped them a few more times in our hotel room later that day and also took the leaves with me to dinner that night. After 9 or 10 steepings the tea had lost all of that tannin, the liquor was still pretty much as deep as earlier steepings though it was starting to thin. I can't say I loved this tea but I did enjoy the chance to see how a tea changes going through so many steepings.

So, that's what I experiences as a newbie with gongfu. I do greatly enjoy the style of brewing and drinking tea this way. I felt as though I could have sat in that tea house with that pot of tea all afternoon.

[nakji]

Sounds like you had a great first experience. I had a puer for the first time recently, and I didn't find it particularly musty - more plummy and rich, actually. It's worth trying again to see if you repeat the "musty" sensation - it may just have been the tea you had.

I bought a gaiwan on my trip into Shanghai this month, and I'm looking forward to trying it out. Just a question, though - do I decent the tea from the gaiwan into another, smaller cup? Or do I drink right from the gaiwan itself?

[Wholemeal Crank]

Decant from the gaiwan. You tilt the lid just a little bit to allow the tea to be poured off quickly--how much depends on the size of the tea leaves that you want to be retained in the gaiway--then pick it up and drain into another cup, holding the gaiwan with fingers over the lid and the base in one hand.

I was thoroughly unimpressed by a restaurant that served us tea as loose leaves plus hot water in gaiwan-shaped cups with no lids and nothing to decant it into--oversteeping, burnt tongues, and eating tea leaves are all definitely no fun!

[Richard Kilgore]

Drinking straight from one's own gaiwan was the traditional way in China, and it is still done there. But most people decant directly into a cup large enough to hold all the tea liquor. Or, especially if preparing tea for two or more, decant into a "fair cup", a small pitcher (say 200 ml capacity or so) and then into small cups so that everyone gets the same strength infusion. Alternatively, if you have a tea table to catch the spills, you can pour from the gaiwan directly into the tiny cups, running back and forth so that, again, everyone gets the same strength infusion. A fair cup is simpler and what I use even when using a tea table.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Drinking straight from one's own gaiwan was the traditional way in China, and it is still done there.

can't understand how you do this: I'd either have a chronically burnt tongue from drinking before the tea cools, or be drinking bitter, oversteeped tea. Cor am I missing something?

[Richard Kilgore]

Not absolutely sure, but my best guess is that this was/is done with green teas at their lower temps rather than Oolongs and pu-erhs. Also probably less rich leaf to water ratio and longer infusion allowing for a little cooling.

Edited October 21, 2009 by Richard Kilgore
Added sentence (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

Here's a nicely produced video on YouTube by Greg Glancy of norbutea.com: How to steep tea using a Gaiwan. He demonstrates the use of a gaiwan, tea table, tea tools, strainer, faircup and tasting cups. It's simple and straightforward.

Do you think this visual will help people understand how to brew gong fu cha style with a gaiwan?

Edited April 22, 2010 by Richard Kilgore
spellin" (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

I have been brewing the white teas for the current Tea Tasting & Discussion in this Sichuan style saucerless Jingdezhen Porcelain Mudan Gaiwan from yunnansourcing.com. This is one of my favorites - the shape pours well and the lid fit is very good. The lack of a saucer is not a problem if you pour using the two-fingers-and-a-thumb technique.

[Wholemeal Crank]

I now freely go back and forth between the plus-saucer or without-saucer on my gaiwans without thinking much about it. If the tea is very hot, like a puerh, I'm more likely to use the saucer to better insulate my fingers from the scorch, but if for some other reason I happen be paying attention, sometimes I'm using the saucer, sometimes not.

Today I'm also using more of the matched gaiwans as tasting cups. Works great. Since this is a chronic annoyance when doing these comparison brewings--the cups not matching well the size of the gaiwans, western style mugs being too large, the 'tasting cups' being too small, buying a bunch of extra gaiwans just for that might be the way to go. They're cheap enough, and then I'd have an extra supply of lids and saucers, which seem to be what breaks first.