Tea gongfu

[Aetherous]

Thinking out loud...this topic can be for anyone who likes tea, who wants to share their thoughts on it...

Perhaps gongfu tea is not about yixing pots, gaiwans, tools, bamboo trays, sniffing cups, etc. At the most basic level, perhaps it's about having experience with:

1) the one specific variety of tea you're using
2) different types of water
3) different water temperatures

4) different steeping times

So you could do gongfu tea simply using two cups and a strainer of some sort...or could go with the typical gongfu supplies. To me, gongfu just means that you've put in some actual work in order to refine what you're doing.

So if you experiment (work), you eventually find the sweet spot between water that's too hot and scorches the leaves, and water that's not hot enough and doesn't extract the essence of the tea. We have thermometers...why not record your precise result? Does the result change from winter to summer? Does it change at different elevations or locations around the world? This could be done as an experiment in a shorter period of time, or just as personal experience over a long period.

Steep it just enough so that you have the taste and smell, and it reveals its essence to you fully...not so much that the flavor is overbearing or even bitter, where the aroma is harsh and strong...and not too little so that the flavor and aroma are hardly a hint. Record the sweet spot of the steep time in relation to that sweet spot temperature you found before. If one changes, the other probably will too - they depend on each other.

Your results will be much more conservative than what they typically recommend for temp and steeping times at tea shops.

There will also be a specific amount of this type of tea leaf used. You could weigh it on a jewelers scale for greater accuracy than just saying something like "2 heaping teaspoons"...then you know you're getting the same result each time.

 

And for more refinement, you can go from tap water, to bottled water of various types, to a natural spring, to rain water, etc. There are also advanced filters these days, where you can collect from a source in nature like a pristine river, snow, ice, rainwater, etc. It seems to me that different types of teas respond better or worse to different types of water. Once the basics (temp, time, amount of tea) are down, then you can refine this way choosing the one that works the best for you.

I think only after it's refined this far, should you consider other minor details like tea ceremony products.

Just some thoughts, I don't actually know much about gongfu tea historically.

[thelerner]

Speaking of gongfu tea- My old sensei used to say:

Never bring Silver Needle White tea

to a Green Gunpowder tea fight. 

 

You bet your Assam.

[joeblast]

Using tap water for the most part is an offense against tea-gongfu

 

Techniques to put the gung into the tea are a good idea too

 

I generally bring my filtered water to 180-190, which I'm sure some may consider too hot...maybe I need to watch the pot to make sure it doesnt get that far

 

some people rinse the leaves, too....with what temp water

[Rocky Lionmouth]

I only brew Ti Kuan Yin Lap Lap Hoa or Vanilla Rooibus.

Never experimented with different waters, tap water is fine for me.

The Ti Kuan Yin goes as follows:

 

For halv a litre of tea i take five fistfuls of leaves minimum. Lots of leaves. When they're wet they should reach the brim of the pot. Never be stingy with oolong.

Never a full boil, just almost.

Rinse with half the pots capacity and never steep more than a minute. 1,5 minutes and it's already ruined.

The large amount of leaves gives a strong flavour and aroma, hard caffeine kick and quick steep lets none of the bitter acidic Stuff out, i simply cant stand that taste and even a little tea-acid (no matter how strong the brew) f-s my stomach up like crazy.

I've heard of people steeping for up to five minutes, all of my experimentation in that direction has been utter failure, undrinkable foxpoison.

 

Expensive? Yes. Frugal? Not at all. Good? Unbeatable, to me at least.

How often? Three or four times a year, i'm a coffee-drinker so tea is just for the experience and taste.

 

Serve as is or with the tiniest amount of cane sugar.

 

Rooibus sits for five to ten with a dash of milk and lots of honey, i drink it maybe once a month.

[Taomeow]

I have experimented with assorted green teas and make them on occasion, also have mastered matcha, to an extent...  but I don't feel as confident about my green gongfu as about my training since early childhood in black tea gongfu.  Let alone coffee.  I could and probably should start a coffee mystery lineage someday.  But since this is about tea, here's my black Russian tea gongfu:

 

black Ceylon tea, the best you can find.  I don't know where to find the best.  It's hit and miss.  I remember the taste of the real thing, but it was one and only when I was growing up, and it's not there anymore.  So, any Ceylon with good Amazon reviews these days.

 

Warm a porcelain tea pot with some hot water.  Mine is English, the pot that is, not the water, and part of the charm is to use a tea pot that is aesthetically appealing and to love it.  The water is deep artesian, from a local source in Carlsbad, CA, which I blissfully get delivered to my home -- their delivery range is pretty much microlocal, and I'm in the range.  Our tap water is undrinkable. 

 

Discard the water used to warm up the pot and put four heaping teaspoons of tea leaves in the pot, pour water over them that just this second has come to a full boil but was not allowed to boil or it will lose oxygen.   I use a kettle with a whistle to tell me when, even though I prefer traditionally designed kettles with a long, sensuously curved spout, but I lost a lot of water to sheer absent-minded evaporation when I had one of those, so aesthetics had to be sacrificed to utility. (I never use electrical devices for any food or drink purposes.)  The pot is filled to 3/4th its volume.  That's going to be the tea concentrate, zavarka.  This has to steep a minimum of 5 minutes.  Then you pour some of it into the cup and add hot water, regulating the proportions by color and personal tea strength preferences of the drinker.  I like to bring the water in the kettle almost to a boil for the second time for this, but that's optional.  The concentrate will last 24 hours, so you can drink your next cup whenever you like in a similar fashion within this period. 

 

This is the kind of tea you drink either as is or use the same technology to make what they call chai tea, or tea with lemon and honey, or tea with cream, or tea with fruit preserves or with whatever snacks.   It is cozy tea.  Non-ceremonial.  I drink it whenever it's too late in the day for coffee.    But I do make it "just so" -- which is what gongfu is about.  A somewhat rigid procedure, polished to perfection and adjusted between the hoary tradition and personal preferences.

 

My preference is to drink it every which way, depending on the season, the mood, and the time of the day.  I won't make it weak early in the day, won't make it strong in the evening.  I make chai tea with Indian spices I mix myself in colder months.  I drink this tea with munchies when watching a movie or reading a book.  These days it seldom serves its primary purpose, that of a social drink.  When it does, I serve it with fruit or berry preserves, honey, lemon, cheese, and whatever snacks are handy.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Taomeow

[Aetherous]

I could and probably should start a coffee mystery lineage someday.

Please do!

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I have a few thoughts about this, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible:

 

 

Tea Gongfu comes from Chao Zhou and Wuyi and has around 200 years of history, although different histories give different lengths of time.  The original purpose of tea gongfu is to brew Oolong tea because Oolong, especially those from Chaozhou and wuyi require a bit of skill to make properly.  The issues with both of these teas is that they tend to get bitter faster than other types of tea.   the popular Manchurian Gaiwan was adopted in those places as a tea pot, as were Chaozhou gongfu pots, because their smaller sizes were better for brewing stronger tea and could get more steeps.   gongfu tea is the specific tea brewing method of that part of China, and it never existed in other parts of China until much more recently.   Usually it is meant to be done as a communal thing, where three or more people get together to taste the tea and chat.

 

In the 1970s, tea master Zhou Yu and some others began to try to create a new genre of Gongfu tea that would copy more closely Japanese Sado tea ceremony as was passed down via China in the Yuan Dynasty.   Taiwanese oolong tea can't be made like Japanese matcha though, so Zhou Yu laoshi and others began to use Chaozhou style tea pots which they made in various places in Taiwan including Yingge.   Taiwan Cha Dao is what we normally call Chinese tea ceremony, but the fact of the matter is that it was created in Taiwan.  This particular Cha Dao is the complicated one with the smelling cups, pouring cup, and complex tools etc.  Traditional gongfu tea and Taiwanese tea brewing are typically much more simple and natural.

The special aspect of Zhou Yu Laoshi's tea art was that he learned how to brew the tea in a way that made it taste even better than before.  Cha Dao has some basic rules which make it superior to old fashioned Chinese brewing methods, so eventually faculties at Chinese universities began to investigate their own research of "Zhong hua cha yi," or Chinese culture tea art.  This is a modern invention since the 80s.

 

I was luck enough to meet Zhou Yu Laoshi last year and he was a very nice man with a very deep knowledge of tea, in my opinion, he is the ancestor teacher of Cha Dao and also the root of modern Chinese tea ceremony, although of course there are also other players.

 

Another teacher I met in Taipei said this to me "I used to be invested in nice tea pots, cups, and supplies, this is called cha yi (tea art), but now that I'm old, i only care about cha dao, which is the way of brewing the best tasting tea possible for my guests."

I think what he says reflects a lot about what you were expressing in your original post. 

Whether you brew tea strong or weak is really up to you and what you like, but the goal should always be to bring out the full flavour of the tea with no special tricks to change its character.  

In my opinion, all tea arts go back to two words "Pin Cha," taste tea.   Anyone who does cha dao and doesn't have pin cha gongfu is just waving their arms in the air and looking supercilious.   Just like Nei Gong is the internal structure of Taijiquan, tea tasting skills are the basic of tea ceremony, everything else follows.

Brewing tea could be as simple as a cup, tea, and water, or it could be a convoluted ceremony with all kinds of tools, special ettiquette, and formal clothes, it is all up to you.    one of the best things about tea history is that it is so diverse and so based on nature, enjoyment, and the quality of the tea 

 

i hope this post has been informative 

[Aetherous]

i hope this post has been informative 

It truly was...thank you!

[gendao]

Well, esoteric 茶道 starts with the tea itself.  For alchemical purposes, the best teas come from the oldest trees growing up on pristine mountaintops.  Note that Camellia sinensis can grow THOUSANDS of years old, especially in SW China!  Similar to wine...good terroir and spirit (靈) of the mountain = good tea.  However, most Americanized tea drinkers are completely unaware of these such factors!

Lín-Cang is also home to the world's oldest and largest living tea tree, believed to be 3,200 years old

But learning info like this was just from a casual afternoon in China, representing just a tip of the cultural iceberg there.  Yet, is simply unavailable in the West.  You could probably read all the tea books and even go to a few classes here - yet still not learn these deeper aspects.  So no, the old Daoist knowledge is not all lost there, and your average armchair Daoist-American is still by comparison splashing in the baby pool here, lol.

 

Believe it or not, a lot of tribal knowledge is oral, stored offline, and not in the English language, lol!

 

(Which is not to say individuals here can't forge their own personal path with enough dedicated gongfu.  At the end of the day, the guy who knows nothing but practices sincerely, will still surpass the guy who knows everything but puts little of it into practice!  Not to mention, there can also be confusion from too much information overload, some of it even conflicting...)

Edited October 23, 2016 by gendao

[al.]

Check out these articles for very informative and technical tips on traditional gong-fu tea:

 

http://www.kyarazen.com/chaozhou-gongfu-tea/

 

Whilst it's good to honour tradition, it's also important to keep cultural and geographical perspective too- as SillyBears post above describes there is always innovation in tea culture- so finding the most suitable way to adapt gong-fu tea to your lifestyle and needs should take precedent over rigidly conforming to set rules.... unless perhaps you are practicing Japanese tea ceremony 

[Aetherous]

Check out these articles for very informative and technical tips on traditional gong-fu tea:

 

http://www.kyarazen.com/chaozhou-gongfu-tea/

 

That's awesome.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Bam!

Great thread, i really needed to read this!

 

Cha yi, cha dao, pin cha. That makes sense.

A soft whisper in my ear (let's call it Late Night Sleepy Poet) tells me it's a metaphor of the three treasures but it'd be misrepresentative i'm sure

 

 

 

I'm down for the coffee mystery lineage! Is there regalia involved? If no, i'm still down.

[Aetherous]

The production of oolong is more detailed than I assumed:

http://www.amazing-green-tea.com/oolong-tea-processing.html

[qicat]

i only care about cha dao, which is the way of brewing the best tasting tea possible for my guests."

 

 I could taste his tea when I read this. It's that "perfectly brewed" cup of tea... nothing in comparison to tea bags they use here...Thanks for sharing... gotta go to Chinese store to pick up some teas now!

[silent thunder]

I'm stoked... a new Tea Shop opened up here in Torrance, vendor has been going for 25 years and they chose our town for their latest expansion.  A massive wall of bins, their selection menu is a full on printed book... and the smell... dear gaia, the aromas of the place.

 

I stocked up on a body buzzing hibiscus with mango that is glorious.   I also grabbed a few ounces of a nice soft vanilla mix and some sturdy earl grey.   Our last local shop closed over a year ago, so this is like finding an oasis. 

[Gerard]

Well, esoteric 茶道 starts with the tea itself.  For alchemical purposes, the best teas come from the oldest trees growing up on pristine mountaintops.  Note that Camellia sinensis can grow THOUSANDS of years old, especially in SW China!

Yes! Wonderful region and amazing trees. All trees are amazing. The Buddha always recommended practice next to a tree, in the forest:

 

"Herein, monks, a monk who has gone to the forest, or to the foot of a tree, or to an empty place, sits down cross legged, holding his back erect, arousing mindfulness in front of him." (Maha Satipatthana Sutta)

 

The ethnic tribes of Yunnan believe they are descended from trees. Isn't it a coincidence?

 

Tea and trees are a blessing of Gaia.

[flyinghigh]

Discard the water used to warm up the pot and put four heaping teaspoons of tea leaves in the pot, pour water over them that just this second has come to a full boil but was not allowed to boil or it will lose oxygen.   I use a kettle with a whistle to tell me when, even though I prefer traditionally designed kettles with a long, sensuously curved spout, but I lost a lot of water to sheer absent-minded evaporation when I had one of those, so aesthetics had to be sacrificed to utility. (I never use electrical devices for any food or drink purposes.)  The pot is filled to 3/4th its volume.  That's going to be the tea concentrate, zavarka.  This has to steep a minimum of 5 minutes.  Then you pour some of it into the cup and add hot water, regulating the proportions by color and personal tea strength preferences of the drinker.  I like to bring the water in the kettle almost to a boil for the second time for this, but that's optional.  The concentrate will last 24 hours, so you can drink your next cup whenever you like in a similar fashion within this period. 

 

 

 

I think, that's how it's served in most Arabic and Turkish restaurants.

Do you put the tea leaves loosely into the pot or use a filter?

What do you think of Assam and Darjeeling?

Do you add milk or sugar at all?

I try to avoid sugar as much as possible put will sometimes use jaggery or palm sugar which allegedly has a lower glycemic index.

[Taomeow]

I think, that's how it's served in most Arabic and Turkish restaurants.

Do you put the tea leaves loosely into the pot or use a filter?

What do you think of Assam and Darjeeling?

Do you add milk or sugar at all?

I try to avoid sugar as much as possible put will sometimes use jaggery or palm sugar which allegedly has a lower glycemic index.

 

I put the leaves loosely into the pot.  Better quality tea pots have a built-in mesh on the inside in front of the spout, rather than just a hole.  This mesh acts as a filter when you pour.

 

Darjeeling is pretty good.  I'm not into Assam.

 

Most of the time I don't add anything to tea, but there's exceptions. If I add milk, I also add sugar, and usually chai tea spices.   On average it's one teaspoon of sugar in my tea once a week, so I usually don't care what kind of sugar it is as long as it's not corn syrup.  Most of the time I use raw organic though (evaporated cane juice).  Very partial to beet sugar, but it's usually hard to find...  whoa, just realized I haven't checked on Amazon.  I tried palm sugar but it was sticky and hard to handle, user-unfriendly.  I wouldn't worry about the glycemic index, which actually means absolutely nothing in terms of how a food item is metabolized.  Corn syrup has half the glycemic index of sugar, yet in the studies comparing the actual effects on the body, rats that were fed corn syrup gained twice as much weight as rats fed an equal amount of sugar, and promptly developed diabetes too. 

Edited April 20, 2017 by Taomeow

[flyinghigh]

Interesting. Thank you.

 

I actually made the tea yesterday according to your explanation. I only had Assam at home.

I normally prefer both my black tea and coffee with milk. However, this tasted also great without milk.

Softer than my normal tea brews, of which I can only drink one or two cups. This one, I think I had four cups.

I also had some in the late afternoon. That I could feel when I went to bed and couldn't fall asleep

The problem with corn syrup apparently is, that it is mostly fructose and might lead to a fatty liver. Also for the HFCS I don't think it is produced in a traditional way.

[Taomeow]

Interesting. Thank you.

 

I actually made the tea yesterday according to your explanation. I only had Assam at home.

I normally prefer both my black tea and coffee with milk. However, this tasted also great without milk.

Softer than my normal tea brews, of which I can only drink one or two cups. This one, I think I had four cups.

I also had some in the late afternoon. That I could feel when I went to bed and couldn't fall asleep

The problem with corn syrup apparently is, that it is mostly fructose and might lead to a fatty liver. Also for the HFCS I don't think it is produced in a traditional way.

 

Four cups!  I don't think I ever had four cups of tea in one day, except when stuck on a non-moving train for hours due to heavy snowfall blocking the way, in Russia, many moons ago.  They used to serve the best tea on trains, there was apparently some secret technology, everybody knew that it's impossible to replicate it at home.  That's gone, now it's tea bags...  That snow day on the train I think I drank more than four cups, just because there wasn't much else to do, oh and they weren't cups, they served tea in glasses in metal holders, another tradition.  And "train sugar" on the side -- individually wrapped sugar cubes, two per pack.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Taomeow

[AussieTrees]

Four cups!  I don't think I ever had four cups of tea in one day, except when stuck on a non-moving train for hours due to heavy snowfall blocking the way, in Russia, many moons ago.  They used to serve the best tea on trains, there was apparently some secret technology, everybody knew that it's impossible to replicate it at home.  That's gone, now it's tea bags...  That snow day on the train I think I drank more than four cups, just because there wasn't much else to do, oh and they weren't cups, they served tea in glasses in metal holders, another tradition.  And "train sugar" on the side -- individually wrapped sugar cubes, two per pack.

Hi Taomeow,

 

Tea doesn't know it is in a tea bag,and produces tea no less tasty to drink.

Years ago when having stopped alcohol intake,started having the occasional apple cider,just one in the evenings.

After a time,there was much reflection on this cider habit,and it was expensive,even at one drink daily.

Then came across this fruits of the forest,red tea with hint of apple,with sugar tasted very much like my daily apple cider.

So switched to tea only,daily after lunch,evenings,can have 4-6 cups,gets me just as high and can regulate my own sweetener.

I say tea only after coffee mornings,that is if coffee mornings don't become coffee afternoons and evenings,things tend to escalate.

[doc benway]

Enjoying some nice Lipton's iced tea with sugar right now!

 

Yum 

 

[silent thunder]

I'm saturating myself in Morroccan Mint tea of late...

I drink it all day for quite some time now.

 

though there is a new blend around... she's a blissful deep redhead.

 

Rosehips mixed liberally with mango.  *blush*  she is amazing.