The steps and the accoutrements:

1. I almost always use Crystal Geyser spring water for shu pu’er (and other teas). It’s affordable and works just as well or better with tea as some of the more expensive spring waters I’ve tried.
2. When brewing shu pu’er I always use the Kamjove electric water kettle for heating the water to boiling.



3. I generally brew at the tea table with the small, blue-green Yixing teapot that has been dedicated to brewing only shu pu’er teas. It is quite small and works perfectly.



4. I use boiling water and rinse the leaves with a very short initial infusion that also serves to warm the cups and pitcher (fair cup).
5. The first drinkable infusion is about 1 minute long.
6. I almost always use a glass serving pitcher (fair cup) because I like to be able to see the rich oranges and reds of the pu’er tea liquor, especially when there’s light coming through it.



7. The cups vary more than the teapot, but the cups I use most often with pu’er are the unglazed plain Yixing cups. They’re small, thin and very nice to drink from.



8. The number of subsequent infusions varies depending on what a particular tea is able to yield, but it’s generally at least 5, and each one is usually also about a minute, but sometimes longer if the tea seems to need more infusion time.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• Da Hong Pao among the mists
• New storage for pu’er

In my opinion, such a reputable tea needs to be accompanied by preparation vessels and tools that match up with its elegance, so a few weeks ago I acquired the teapot in the accompanying photographs below for the explicit purpose of using it only for Da Hong Pao. I have a different Yixing Gongfu set that I had been using for all types of WuYi Oolongs, but I decided that Da Hong Pao needed its own teapot, and that it ought to be one that was more regal in appearance.

I looked at several teapots, but this was the one that I really liked the look of much better than any of the others. It was also the one that felt the best in my hand. I was told that Da Hong Pao would need a teapot with a broad surface area, and the shape of this one is ideal.

I seasoned the vessel with a small amount of one of the slightly lower grade Da Hong Pao teas that I had, and a few days later the teapot was performing perfectly on the tea table, brewing really well, and looking quite wonderful, especially when the tea was drying rapidly on its surface as it steeped the tea.

As an aside, I don’t know if it’s the time of day or the change in the atmospheric conditions due to the onset of Spring, or perhaps even the shape of the teapot, but the most recent tea session of Da Hong Pao (a very lovely example from Canton Tea Company) resulted in a very impressive display of steam in and around all of the tea objects. Of course, it would not be out of the question that I simply became fixated on steam for a time and thus paid more than the usual amount of attention to it.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• Chado: The Way of Tea, at ArtXchange
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• How I generally brew shu pu’er

The arrangement of the show displays all of the teaware pieces exceptionally well, most of them laid out on the beautiful pure slabs of gorgeous wood that have been transformed into tables by the talented artisans at SLAB Art. The inner perimeter of the gallery space is lined with slices of some of the most luxurious woods, adding to the rich atmosphere of the space.

Of the four exhibiting artists – Richard Brandt, Geo Lastomirsky, Tina Pepa, and Christopher Shaw – all but Ms. Pepa were on hand for the tastings. Both Brandt and Shaw produce teawares designed for Gongfu Cha, and are connoisseurs of the leaf as well as its brewing and serving implements.

There was a delightful array of teas donated to the event by Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves Tea, and Brett Boynton of Black Dragon Tea Bar. The teas consisted primarily of Taiwanese oolongs, but also included a Da Hong Pao and an intriguing Organic Hong Cha from Taiwan. Also, instigated by a conversation with Chris Shaw about aged sencha the previous evening, I provided a Kuradashi Sencha, which brewed excellently (and beautifully) in one of his stoneware pots.

During the first session of tastings I was able to observe the initiation of Richard Brandt’s Wind Moon teapot as it was introduced first to a lightly oxidized Alishan and then to a darker roasted Dong Ding, put through the paces of a Taiwanese Phoenix Mountain Oolong and finally used for the Taiwanese black tea. The transformation was quite something to watch, as the surface of the teapot darkened, speckled, and acquired spidery dark streaks along its front.

The tastings, held over a leisurely four hours, took place in the lower back part of the gallery space as well as in the upstairs exhibition loft, split between the two hosts, Shaw and Brandt. I can say with confidence that all of the participants had an excellent time, including the artists themselves.

Although the opportunity to taste teas in these lovely wares has passed, you can still stop into SLAB Art and view the teawares available for sale this Saturday and Sunday, April 2nd and 3rd and the following weekend. The entire body of work in the show is impressive and varied, and all of the pieces look like objects one would want to hold and use. Even Geo Lastomirsky’s exquisite pieces, kindly on loan from Paccini Lubel Gallery, have a wonderful look to them which can be imagined heightened by a bath of tea liquor.

Photographs, from top to bottom:
Christopher Shaw, taken by Chris
Richard Brandt, taken by Chris
downstairs tasting with Christopher Shaw’s teaware, taken by Cinnabar
upstairs tasting with Richard Brandt’s teaware, taken by Chris

View more photos from the show on my Flickr page and in the Gongfu Girl Flickr Group.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chado: The Way of Tea, at ArtXchange
• Come to the Northwest Tea Festival!
• Phoenix rising
• How I generally brew shu pu’er
• Da Hong Pao among the mists

On Sunday following the show opening there will be tea tastings offered in the gallery space, with traditional teas provided by Floating Leaves Tea and Black Dragon Tea Bar, prepared and served with the exhibiting artists’ teawares.

Artists displaying their works in the show include Richard Brandt, Chris Shaw and Tina Pepa. In addition to the works on display and for sale, there will be some pieces of teaware from my personal collection to show similarities and contrasts with the new and local work.

(Click image to view entire poster.)

from the press release:

Once known as the home of the latté, Seattle is now steeped in the emerging contemporary tea culture. Drawing equally on traditional influences and current social media—tea blogs are burgeoning—this new trend cuts across all demographics and pulls in anyone who wants to savor a tranquil moment with friends. This inaugural show, Infusions, will highlight the leading edge of the Northwest tea culture, featuring contemporary tea sets from local ceramic artists, tea tables crafted from salvaged wood by Slab Art, and tea tastings with artisanal and traditional tea samples brewed in the artists’ creations.

INFUSIONS:
Design, Fine Craft, & Contemporary Tea Culture
Slab Art, 4919 17th Ave NW, Seattle 98107
March 26 – April 9, 2011

Sat, March 26 – Opening Reception (6-10 pm)
Sun, March 27 – Tea Tastings (10 am-2 pm)
Viewing times after opening by appointment

For additional information, contact Chris Shaw, 206.359.0792. Space is limited, so reservations are recommended for Sunday’s tea tastings. Email infusions@contemporaryclay.org to ensure a spot.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Reading “A Tea Reader”
• Chado: The Way of Tea, at ArtXchange
• Come to the Northwest Tea Festival!
• World Tea Expo 2011
• Phoenix rising

*********************

“A musician can have Kung Fu, or the poet who paints pictures with words and makes emperors weep, this too is Kung Fu.”

As mister Jackie Chan said above, kung fu is more than throwing a punch or pouring a cup of tea. Everybody can learn the basic steps of gong fu cha, but how come the results are so different?

The answer to this question is well understood by somebody who practices any skill with diligence. I will focus on two skills today: martial arts and tea.

There are few kung fu movies, especially old movies, which don’t show any tea related item in them. In every movie, a master accepts a student only after he serves him tea from a gaiwan.  I think today, this custom has vanished, but the practice of drinking tea by martial artists has not.

I grew up reading Japanese books like Musashi and Taiko.  Tea is often mentioned in those books. I believe that the Japanese tea ceremony would not be the same without the centuries of war that Japan experienced.  Tea was truly a moment of peace in those struggling times.  I would go on and say that concepts like wabi sabi were created by warriors, and polished by artists.  The concept of finding perfection in imperfection would seem only natural in those conditions, as natural as finding peace in the middle of war.

Those warriors were first of all schooled in the arts of war. Of course, those skills are no longer necessary today, because if you kill a person with a punch you go straight to jail, no matter how skillful you are.  Martial arts have evolved into something else over time.  Rather than being skills used to kill, they become tools of self improvement. One can now train his mind, body and soul by practicing over long periods of time.

In martial arts, a fist hits or does not hit.  There is no “what if”. You learn to accept and work on your own mistakes. No matter the cause of being hit, the only answer to why that fist hit is: because you are not good enough. Skill doesn’t come in a day.  This is exactly how I see gong fu cha, and for me, it’s just a different ‘martial’ tool to practice, and both skills ‘brew’ me as a person.

Most of you who read this blog should already know how many things one should take into consideration when brewing tea.  I think you can agree with me that those skills cannot be obtained by reading books or by a scientific approach.  You cannot expect to obtain a perfect formula for tea brewing.

The only difference between you and a master is decades of practice. This is the only way of learning.

As in martial arts, the body learns, not the mind.  In both skills, practitioners learn to ‘shut down’ their mind.  Mistake by mistake, success by success, the countless hours spent practicing sum up and without knowing, you start to have results, but you realize you are far away.

One should accept his inability when it comes to tea.  For example, I often brew tea for people who have never heard of gong fu cha.  I do want to make sure that I don’t lie to myself, and I brew enjoyable tea.  It’s easy to build your own imaginary world and imagine yourself as a ‘tea or zen master.’ Reality checks are a must.

Martial arts teach you to accept yourself and work on your mistakes. So does tea. Trying to behave as something you are not reflects in your art. You, as a human person, are an indispensable element of gong fu.  Your essence is reflected in what you do.  As I read somewhere, “the cup of tea you brew will reflect all of what you are and will leave an impression on those who drink your tea.”

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• Chado: The Way of Tea, at ArtXchange
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• Dallying with Darjeeling

The export tea industry in Taiwan was established by the Japanese during their occupation of the country, which lasted from 1895 through the end of World War II, and included systematic attempts at assimilating the Taiwanese people into Japanese culture. Black tea production began in earnest after the Japanese brought the larger-leaf Assamica plants into the region from Burma in the 1920s. These plants were cultivated with the local Taiwanese wild plants to produce the bushes which now produce Hong Yue.

Naturally we wouldn’t even be discussing a black tea from Taiwan if the Taiwanese had not maintained and improved the local tea industry and trade following retrocession of the island to the Republic of China in the mid-forties. Within the relatively short span of time since the end of Japanese colonialism, Taiwan has built up a stellar reputation among tea drinkers, primarily for its oolong teas, such as the various types of Bao Zhong and high-mountain oolongs. While not as well known, Taiwan’s black teas deserve wider recognition for their unique character as well.

From the description on Rishi’s site:

“The five year old Hong Yue black tea farm in Nantou is too small for organic certification but the tea is still cultivated without any pesticides or harmful chemicals. Special yellow flowers are planted between the rows of tea bushes to help nurture the young tea bushes in place of fertilizers. Their roots aerate the soil and create an environment where beneficial bacteria thrive. They are mulched into the soil when the tea trees are older and stronger.”

For more details, including photographs and more about the nitrogen-fixing yellow flowering plant that is planted alongside the Hong Yue bushes, read the post on Rishi’s blog.

I brewed this tea using Gongfu methods, in a Taiwanese clay dragon teapot, with a high leaf-to-water ratio and 30-second steeps. The tea has a luxuriant red/orange color and yields a delicious, flavorful liquor through multiple steeps. As one would expect from a leaf with Assamica in its pedigree, Hong Yue produces a strong brew, with intense depth of character. I’ve read descriptions that compare it to brandy, which is understandable given its wine-like tones. It has a deep, slightly bitter woody quality, somewhat akin to the character imbued in a wine casked in oak rather than stainless steel. Even before the first sip, I recommend inhaling deeply to experience the rich complex aroma, which includes a slight note of peppermint.

Note, there is a limited amount of this tea available from Rishi, and I’ve been told it is almost sold out already.

For more on the history of the Taiwanese tea industry, read The Art of Tea on Cultural Taiwan, which is published by the Republic of China government.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Reading “A Tea Reader”
• World Tea Expo 2011
• How I generally brew shu pu’er
• Da Hong Pao among the mists
• The art of tea art: Infusions at SLAB Art

Several days ago I was looking for some pu’er to drink and wanted to have one I hadn’t tried yet. I remembered the small sample of 1997 wet-stored 8582 pu’er which I’d gotten from Will of Tea Drunk Forum a couple of months ago. That seemed like just the thing, so I sat down to the tea table and brewed some.

This particular pu’er is one of the earthiest, mustiest pu’er teas I’ve ever had. It was a little jarring in the first couple of infusions, but mellowed out into a more pleasant brew in the third through fifth infusions.

After the fifth infusion the tea did not seem like it had fully expressed its full capabilities, so I decided to try an experiment with drying the leaves completely. I laid them out on a strainer where they’d get plenty of air and left them there. Then a couple of days later I put them into a glass tea thermos and took it with me to work, where I infused several infusions of it. The tea was still considerably musty in flavor, but it was a nice pu’er to drink.

I didn’t know anything about the original source of this tea before I tried it the first time, but figured I’d be able to find it from the Menghai Factory code, and I was. On Bearsblog, Jason Fasi wrote about this tea when it first came to him – prior to the vacuum storage that killed any evidence of bugs in the tea itself.

Finding out that the tea had previously shown a lot of evidence of insects leaves me to wonder whether I would have had a different tasting experience with it if I’d been picturing little bug larvae crunching around in the leaf before it got to me. I’ll never know.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• How I generally brew shu pu’er
• Da Hong Pao among the mists

Longjing is a tea traditionally brewed in glass. I used a glass gaiwan, glass faircup and glass cups. Glass has a neutral impact on the tea and also displays the rich green, distinctively flat leaves to nice effect.

There are plenty of poor quality Dragon Well teas on the market, and they won’t provide much of an experience of what this tea can be when it’s good. The Longjing that Teas Etc. sells is a very nice one, typical of good quality Longjing, and one that I would recommend to anyone who has been interested in trying this legendary tea.

This particular Longjing is from Long Jing Village in Zhejiang Province, which is the only legitimate place that can produce a true Longjing Cha. It is a pre-Qing Ming tea, which means it is plucked before the Qing Ming festival in early spring. It is best enjoyed with a soundtrack of Purcell ground bass as reinterpreted by Michael Nyman, along with a profound sense of satisfaction at fulfilling a daylong desire for a particular delicious tea.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• Reading “A Tea Reader”
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• How I generally brew shu pu’er

Water

Steam

Wet with Puer

An Assemblage of Teaware

Tea and Wine Pairing

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• Chado: The Way of Tea, at ArtXchange
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• How I generally brew shu pu’er

In preparation I read as much as I could find about use of these stoves, and other people’s frustrations and successes. I recognized that one of the most important factors in using the stove successfully would be getting the charcoal pieces into a steady, reliable burning state before placing them into the burning chamber of the tiny stove. So before I even attempted using the tea stove for the first time I purchased a butane-fueled portable burner to use for lighting the charcoal. I have used a couple of different objects as grates over the flame to keep the charcoal from dropping in, but the most effective is a small enameled steel basket intended for use with foods inside a barbecue grill. Using it directly over the flame has warped it, but it works well. One of the other things I tried was a combination of two grills at right angles to each other, but this was awkward and not fine enough of a grate to prevent enough of the small pieces from dropping into the burner. This method of lighting the charcoal with high flame over a burner works quite well and must be done outside, unless you don’t mind sparse flights of fine sparks and ash inside of your house.

After the coals are sufficiently lit, I use a pair of brass chopsticks to place the smallish pieces into the stove. I’ve found that since the stove itself is small and lightweight it’s easiest to fill it with the burning charcoal outside and then bring it inside of the house for tea. One important thing to remember is that the ceramic kettles that come with these stoves need to be filled with water at least a half hour before placing them onto the stove so that they do not crack.

After the water-filled kettle is settled onto the top of the stove it proceeds to heat up steadily to a full boil. I haven’t timed this exactly, but the volume of the kettle is fairly small, so it doesn’t take very long. As it approaches boiling, steam pours out of the spout and swirls around the lid. The design of the kettle lid makes it possible to pick it up to check the water without getting burned. In my brewing sessions with the stove I keep a pitcher of room temperature spring water close at hand to top up the kettle with fresh water as necessary. It is important not to let the water level get too low or shock the ceramic with water that is too cool when it’s over the burning charcoal, but adding water a little at a time is not a problem.

For more on the technique, read Tea Habitat’s Guide to using a Chao Zhou Stove Set.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 恭喜發財 – Happy Year of the Water Dragon!
• Pure Pu’er
• ATB Blog Carnival: AdagioTeas’ “Roots Campaign.”
• How I generally brew shu pu’er
• Da Hong Pao among the mists