工夫茶 Gōngfū Chá Practice - Brewing Aged Phoenix Oolong
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- čas přidán 14. 02. 2024
- Brewing a 12 year aged 老欉蜜蘭香鳳凰單欉烏龍茶 Lǎo cóng mì lánxiāng fènghuáng dān cóng wūlóngchá - Old Grove Honey Orchid Fragrance Phoenix Dān Cóng “Single Bush/Grove” Oolong tea from 烏岽山 Wūdōngshān in 潮州 Cháozhōu.
The tea is brewed in a small 仿古 fǎnggǔ shape 宜興 Yíxìng teapot made of 朱泥 zhūní clay with and image of a bat and reeds. The bamboo tea scoop is an early 20th century antique Japanese 茶合 sagō with a poem inscribed upon it. The tea viewing vessel is made of 白銅 báitóng (lit. “white copper”, cupronickel) with inlay of jade and brass in the shape of banana leaf. The 茶船 cháchuán (lit. “tea boat”) is a vintage Japanese 伊賀焼 Iga-yaki 片口 katakuchi bowl, paired with a small plate of the same style set below the three cups. The three 品茗杯 pǐn míng bēi (lit. “tea tasting cups”) are vintage enameled Yíxìng ware. The cloth is a small Japanese 風呂敷 furoshiki with waves and blossoms motif in blue and white, contrasted with white pine needles on an orange field on the opposite side. The tea pick is from a local fruit tree picked in Upstate New York. The water has been heated in a vintage Japanese 鉄瓶 tetsubin iron kettle.
The video shows the warming of the teapot and tea cups followed by the first steeping of the tea. In total, the tea produced over twenty steepings, lasting over several hours. The approach of this manner of brewing tea is called 潮州工夫茶 Cháozhōu gōngfū chá, a practice of making tea that is native to the area where the tea was produced.
Regardless of what wares you have at your disposal, so long as you make the time to focus and practice, you can bring out the best flavors in any well-crafted tea. I hope this short video provides you a moment to pause, if not some insight into how an aged Phoenix oolong can be brewed. In the meantime, share with me any thoughts, feedback or questions you might have.
Pause. Breathe. Savor.
Thank you.
🍃 🍵 ♥️
#tea
#gongfucha
#agedtea
#oolong
#agedoolong
#meditation
#chinesetea
#teapot
#teatime
#ceramics
#intention
#practice
#mindfulness
#asmr
#工夫茶
#烏龍茶
#單欉
#茶壺
#老茶
#泡茶
#潮州工夫茶
beautiful, thanks for sharing your practice and details = )
curious about the longer steep time -is this due to the age of leaves or maybe you're brewing at lower temperature; or both?
Thank you for your comment! The steep time is intentionally long, not because it is aged but because I’m attempting to push as much flavor out of the tea as possible without it becoming unpalatable. The temperature of the water was boiling when it came out of the tetsubin and into the teapot. The result is a balance of bitter, astringency, intense florals and fruit tones, and the cooling (almost medicinal) notes that come from the aging process.
My experience brewing this tea over the many years I had held onto it (I had this tea for twelve years since I was harvested in 2012) informed me that it could be brewed this way. Using high heat and relatively long steep times are a hallmark of Cháozhōu gōngfū chá and is meant to expose all the flavors of a tea (good and not so good). If the tea is excellent, it can stand up to this kind of approach and it can tell you a lot about the tea (from the place it was grown, the conditions, the processing, and the many other interactions it’s had up until it makes it into the pot/cup). It takes the skill of the brewer to get it “right”, and this takes a lot of practice.
Thanks again for your comment. Let me know if you are curious to learn more and experiment with this approach to brewing tea.
How many grams do you use at a time?
Great question! I actually don’t measure this out (if you can believe it). I base amount of tea on a number of factors, such as the shape and size and volume of teapot, the shape of tea leaves, and flavor profile I’m trying to aim for. For a Phoenix oolong like this and for a pot of this size, I’ll try to heap the leaves so that they are reaching the opening of the pot. Given that they are so thin and wiry, I know that once they’re wetted they’ll recede a bit down into the pot. However, I want them to eventually unfurl to the point that they all are able to expand evenly to almost fill the entire volume of the pot (save for some space between them). Using this approach, I hope you can see that the various factors I listed above will result in different weights per pot/per tea. The real factor is knowing what the leaves will do once they’re in the pot and how they will respond to the water (how they will expand/unravel, and what flavors they’ll produce).
If you’d like, I can try to weigh-out an approximate amount of what I used in this video and get back to you, but this may not be the amount you end up using when you make your own tea if you were to follow the approach I described above. This style (so I’ve observed) is less about exact measurements and more about determining how to respond to the conditions/factors that are presented to you at any given time, with any given tea, teaware, water, etc. as such, there will always be differences in how you approach the tea.
@@cutechajinWow. Great insight and description. Thank you! What I take away from your post is that I certainly will pay more attention to how the leave behaves in the pot and try to adjust more dynamically ;)
Awesome! Share what you discover in your new approach!