How to brew gongfu tea: step by step
Gongfu brewing (gongfu cha) is the Chinese way of brewing with a lot of leaf, a small pot and many short steeps. You taste how the tea changes from steep to steep, and one handful of leaf gives you many cups.
What you need
- A gaiwan or small teapot of 80 to 150 ml (100 ml is a good start)
- 5 grams of tea for 100 ml of water (a little less for green and white tea)
- A kettle, preferably one where you can set the temperature
- A timer, so that every steep is the same
- A small pitcher and a cup to pour into
Step by step
- Heat the water to the right temperature for your tea (see below).
- Warm the gaiwan with a little hot water and pour it out.
- Add the leaf. Aged and roasted teas can take the water almost boiling.
- Rinse the leaf for 5 seconds with hot water and pour that water away. The rinse wakes the leaf up. Skip it for delicate green and white tea.
- Make the first steep. Pour the water, wait, and pour all of it into the pitcher so that the leaf does not keep steeping.
- Taste the cup. Make each next steep 5 to 10 seconds longer than the one before.
- Stop when the cup tastes thin and flat. Good pu-erh and oolong give 8 or more steeps.
Temperature and steeping times
These are starting points, not rules. Use less leaf or shorter steeps if the cup is bitter, and more if it is weak.
- Sheng (young) pu-erh: 90 to 95°C, steeps of 10, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 60 seconds
- Shou (ripe) pu-erh: 95 to 100°C, steeps of 10, 10, 15, 20, 25, 35, 50 seconds
- Rolled oolong (such as Tieguanyin): 90 to 95°C, steeps of 20, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 seconds
- Roasted rock oolong (such as Da Hong Pao): 95 to 100°C, steeps of 15, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 seconds
- Chinese green tea (such as Longjing): 75 to 80°C, steeps of 20, 20, 25, 30, 40 seconds
- White tea: 80 to 95°C depending on buds or leaves, steeps of 20 to 30 seconds that grow longer
Common mistakes
- Too much water for the leaf: the cup is thin. Use a smaller pot or more leaf.
- Water that is too hot for green tea: the cup turns bitter. Let the kettle rest a minute.
- Leaving the leaf in the water between steeps: the next steep gets too strong.
- Giving up after two steeps: the best part of many teas comes later.