Friday, April 11, 2008
Posted by Miss Neddy at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Wulong Tea Related

As the taste of Tie Kuan Yin is very distinctive, even overpowering, I don’t as yet have a dedicated zisha teapot for it. So, usually I would use a porcelain gaiwan to make the tea. An averaged-sized gaiwan (just comfortable enough to fit into most palms) will require just around 5 grams (or a tablespoon’s worth) of tea leaves:

Fill with water, but not to the brim. If you do, you will find that putting the lid on will make the water overflow, making it difficult to hold on to the gaiwan when you need to pour. It is best to fill up to just before the brim begins to curve outwards, or even slightly below that.

When pouring, use one finger to tilt the lid of the gaiwan just slightly, while the remaining fingers hold the brim of the gaiwan firmly. Tilt the entire gaiwan over your cup or sharing cup, being careful to keep the flow of tea away from your fingers. I find it easiest to use the index finger to hold on to the lid, so that there is a considerable gap between my thumb and middle finger where I can tilt the gaiwan. This part is the hardest to do right, especially if your gaiwan is made of very thin porcelain and heat travels rapidly from the tea to the gaiwan to your fingers.

You can see that the tea leaves, after one or two infusions, expand very quickly to three or four times its original volume:

It’s a very dramatic example of why you need a lot of space in your teapots, tea cups or sieves to allow wulong tea leaves to expand properly. If they can’t expand, the flavour and scent cannot be adequately released. 

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