Tureen, namely gaiwan, we tea lovers' good friends

Tureen

Tureen, namely gaiwan, is a tea device with cover on the top, tray on the bottom, and bowl in the middle. Cover, bowl, and tray are symbols of “Heaven, Earth and Human”, so the gaiwan so known as the “three powers bowel”, “three-power cup”. Mr. Lu Xun said that “if you want to drink nice tea, use the tureen. Sure enough, brew tea in the gaiwan, the tea is clear and sweet, with slightly bitter fragrant, indeed a good tea.”

 

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Function

Gaiwan is used to brew tea or drink tea. So it has the function of pot and bowl. It can keep the tea warm as well as adjust the solubility of tea.

Material

Gaiwan is mainly made of purplr sand, porcelain, glass texture and so on, but various colors of porcelain gaiwan are the majority.

Wise selection

Size Gaiwan volume in tea brewing plays a very important role. 6 grams of tea should be in a Gaiwan with the capacity of 90 ml water; 7 grams of tea, 110 ml water; and 8 grams of tea, 130 ml water.

Workmanship level Qualified tureen has the character: contour lines are standard, square, perfect circle, ellipse, etc. Do not buy the non-standard tureen.

Thick and thin tires  Most high quality tureens are thin, because thin tires are less endothermic in brewing, the temperature will be higher to tea, which can inspire more fragrance.

Eversion of the mouth of the tureen  When select the tureen, pay attention to the eversion of the mouth, usually a tureen with a larger extent is better, which is good for the picking, avoiding burning your hand in brewing.

Usage

1 When use the tureen, the three parts should not be used separately, or it will affect the aesthetic, and it is also rude.

2 In drinking tea, one hand should hold up the tea tray, and the other hand opens the cover, smell the cover fragrant first. Then scuff tea with the cover, put the cover a little tile, and drink slowly.

How to Choose Tea Pot for Brewing Puer Tea

Tea sets vary due to the tea: glass cup is for green tea, the simple and elegant purple sand tea pot is for oolong tea, bowl with lid is for the scented tea. If we can select the tea pot according to the tea character, a good tea is easily made.

Function

Tea pot is mainly used to make tea and hold tea, but a small tea pot sometimes is directly used to make tea and drink from it.

Material

From the texture, the main tea pots are purple sand tea pot, porcelain tea pot, glass tea pot, etc. Among these, purple sand tea pot has the best quality.

Wise selection

Water flows smoothly Water smoothly flows out of the tea pot mouth, do not spray.

Three points on one level This is the most important assessment on good or bad tea pot, namely put the tea pot on the table, if the spout, pot lid, pot handle are on a straight line.

There is another three points on one level method, namely, the pot spout should not be lower than pot mouth, and spout, pot handled should be on a horizontal line.

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Precision pot lid should be tightened rather than relaxed, and the better they fit, the better the pot is, or the flavor will be lost.

Thermal insulation the pot can keep the temperature of the tea liquor, in order to extract adequate nutrients in the tea.

Usage

1 when brew tea, the tea pot size depends on the number of people.

2 the way to hold pot: the standard action is to hold the pot handle using thumb and middle finger; put the pot with upward force; the index finger resting lightly on tea pot lid, do not cover the holes; the ring finger against the handle forward; little finger rests inside. You can also hold pot with two hands. Either way is ok, but do not cover the pot holes.

3 do not put spout against the guests but face you in the process of brewing,

4 when pouring tea, you should fixup the lid with your fingers, so as not to tilt the pot body, slip the tea lid.

Yellow Tea Rare Chinese Tea

Yellow tea belongs to the lightest fermented tea, whose processes are similar to green tea, but with a slower drying phase, the character of yellow tea is golden dry tea leaves and yellowish tea liquor, which is different from green teas.

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Different from the bitter taste of the green tea, yellow tea tastes sweeter with strong aftertaste because of the light fermentation. The process of yellow tea is withered, fermented preventing and rolling, yellowed by fermenting and dry.

Comparing with the processes of green tea, the process of yellow tea is similar with it, but has one more step---yellowed by fermenting.

According to the picking standards, yellow tea is divided into three levels: Huang Yacha, Huang Xiaocha, Huang Dacha. The highest level of yellow tea named Huang Yacha, which is picked buds in spring to make. The second level of yellow tea named Huang Xiaocha, which is made of buds and tender leaves in spring. It is said that Huang Xiaocha is the sweetest yellow tea among all the levels. Huang Dacha is made for rough and strong leaves which are seldom to use.

There are many famous breeding for yellow teas which have special flavor.

Junshan Yinzhen

Junshan Yinzhen is a kind of yellow tea produced in Junshan, Dongting Lake, Hunan Province. As one of the favorite teas of Chairmen Mao, Junshan Yinshan Yinzhen is a kind of tea with appreciation value.

The brewing way of Junshan Yinzhen is special. Firstly, put hot water into a cup. Then put 3 to 5 grams Junshan Yinzhen in the glass. After that, put some hot water in the glass again to 17 percent. Finally you can see all the tea leaves like needle floating in the glass.

Jinyun Huangcha

Jinyun Huangcha is produced in Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province, where is famous for its beautiful scene. Jinyun Huangcha must be picked from the mountain over 1,000 meters high.

Tea farmers believe that good quality tea must be produced in high mountains, because the temperature in high mountain is low which could help tea bush growing slowly. Then tea leaves could become fat, fully of nutrition.

Jinyun Huangcha is a kind of Huang Xiaocha whose flavor is fruity. What is more, the shape of Jinun Huangcha looks like Longjing, but yellowish. And white leaves in the cup looks like yellow jade. So Jinyun Huangcha is a kind of tea full of appreciation value.

Huoshan Huangya

Huoshan Huangya originally produced in Anhui Province, which is picked in the middle of April. Tea farmers pick tea buds with the shape of sparrow tongue. The flavor of Huoshan Huangya is like fried chestnut. Because of this special flavor, Huoshan Huangya has been the tribute since Ming Dynasty.

Post-fermented tea, namely, dark tea

The post-fermented tea is a kind of tea without fermentation during the process. The mainly process is withered fermented preventing, dried by sunshine. There are six provinces produced post-fermented tea, namely Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi and Anhui. According to the taste of fermented tea, it could be divided into raw tea and cooked tea. The raw tea tastes strong and fresh, with many years preservation, the taste of fresh and strong will changed into dense and sweet. The cooked tea tastes tender than raw tea, after the step of drying by sunshine, those dry leaves are fermented by heating and moisturizing. That is the cooked post-fermented tea.

The cooked post-fermented tea appeared in the early 1970s. And dark tea could be divided into two kinds, tea from bush and arbor. Generally speaking, most post-fermented teas are from Sichuan, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei and Anhui belong to tea bush, which teas from Tibet and Yunnan belong to tea arbor. The medical function of post-fermented tea is lowering blood fat. Because of this function, post-fermented tea has been precious to emperor since Yuan Dynasty up to Qing Dynasty. At the same time, the post-fermented tea becomes one of the export goods to Mongolia and the Europe. People living in the cold place, such as the Mongolia, Russia, Tibet and so on, like post-fermented tea very much for drinking this tea could help people warming up and sweating.

Nowadays, if you travel to Tibet, Sinkiang or Mongolia, you will find milky post-fermented tea is a common beverage among those regions.

 

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Puerh tea

Puerh tea is a city’s name in Yunnan Province, where is a tea market of the post-fermented tea. In fact, only Puerh tea is divided into raw tea and fermented tea. Since Yuan Dynasty, Puerh tea had become a good as export by Silk Road. According to the tea shape, in order to convince for transportation, after drying by sunshine, Puerh tea is pressed into different shapes, such as brick, cake, bowl, pearl and so on. Although raw Puerh tea tastes fresh and bitter in the first months, the taste will become mellow quickly with years’ storage. After years’ preservation, raw tea liquor will become red regularly. Most Puerh tea lovers like to collect raw tea and storage them because they would like to enjoy the change of the tea. As we said above, fermented tea appeared later than raw tea, which takes advantage of manmade post-fermentation. It tastes sweeter than raw tea and is popular in females and people who got stomach illness.

The appearance of Puerh tea looks a little bit rough and strong to compare with tidy and elegant green tea. Puerh tea seems mature without superfluous decoration and the superior dry leaves looks strong and glossy. The liquor of fermented tea looks like red amber as well the raw tea looks like bright oil.

No matter the fermented Puerh tea or aged raw Puerh tea, we will find a fermented aroma mixed with dust. In order to eliminate that smelling, we had better toast dry leaves before brewing. What is more, the liquor will become dense and sweet by this way.

To drop a little water on the surface of toasted dry leaves and make the dry leaves absorb the water quickly. After absorbing water, the tea leaves will spread out aroma perfectly.

People divide water for brewing tea into 3 levels: the first level is mountain spring, the second level is water in the river and the last level is water in the well. And now, we put mountain spring in tea pot for brewing until the tea liquor boiled. Put 50% hot spring in the tea pot, and then filter out tea soup.

Get the boiled tea liquor into fair cup then to share tea liquor to everyone. Smelling Puerh aroma, drinkers feel like reviewing the past.

The color of ripe Puerh tea is red like ruby or amber while the color of aged raw Puerh tea is reddish like Dahongpao.

After appreciation the liquor, sip the tea liquor in three times, the dense and sweet liquor will make our mouth juicy and our body warm up and sweating.

 

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Green Tea Bi Luo Chun

Biluochun is second only to West Lake Longjing in Chinese green tea, famous for “beautiful shape, bright color, fragrant scent, and sweet taste”. It is mainly produced in Dongting Mountain of Taihu Lake in Jiangsu Province, so it is also called “Dongting Biluochun”.

Brewing difficulty: Easy

Best season to taste: Summer

Origin: Dongting Mountain on the bank of Taihu Lake, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province

Quality characteristics

Shape: strips are slender and uniform. It is spiral-shaped like snails and fuzzy, with pekoe revealed.

Liquid: green and clear, delicious and fluid, with the scents of flower and fruit.

Aroma: fragrant and elegant.

Taste: fresh and sweet.

Brewed tea leaves: soft and green, bright and uniform.

Recognizing

Biluochun, with obvious sprout, is taken in the principle of a bud in a shoot. The bud is white and green leaves are curl. Fake Biluochun is one bud with two shoots, the length of the shoots are different, yellow, and the fuzz is mostly seen green but not white.

 

Green Tea Bi Luo Chun

Tea ceremony

Top-putting brewing method: first put some hot water into a 7/10 cup, and then some tea. The top grade tea such as Biluochun with tight strips and tender is more suitable for brewing in this way.

Water temperature: Biluochun is very delicate, so the water should be cooled down to 80℃, otherwise it will destroy the taste.

Ornamental: Biluochun is of high ornamental value. We can enjoy the sight of brewed tea leaves after infusion.

Tea-fruit intercropping

Different from other tea, Biluochun takes the form of tea-fruit intercropping cultivation: staggered with loquat, peach, pomegranate, apricot and other fruit trees. Thus, tea and fruit tress’ branches are connected to each other, and the roots are intricately interlinked. The tea slowly absorbs the incense of flowers and mature fruit, so it will have the natural quality of fruity taste and floral incense.

An interesting example of tea spread and culture changing

An interesting example of tea spread and culture changing

When I got this tea, I believe the packing designer is not Chinese but a romantic westerner who is familiar with Chinese and Japanese culture.

This ripe puerh tea is named dark mistress, which has two meanings for me. First, compared with other ripe peurh tea bricks which contains some buds, this whole leaves ripe puerh tea brick is dark color, like a beautiful lover who accompanies you no matter you are happy or sad. Second, compared with raw puerh tea, ripe puerh tea has function of stomach care like your mistress cooks health delicious food for you and takes care of you.

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I like the girl and her black hair, cheongsam, and fan very much. Including the red dragon, all these elements originate from China, but we can feel the style is not traditional Chinese culture. Even I am not very familiar Japanese culture, I think it is Japanese cartoon style.

In short, I like this packing very much, it is really interesting example of tea spread and culture changing.

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Oolong Tea

Oolong tea

Oolong tea belongs to semi-fermented tea, which is between green tea and black tea with the characteristics of green tea’s fresh and black tea’s strong flavor. According to the difference of oolong tea’s procedures, the percentage of ferment can be defined from 25% to 75%. The four production zones of oolong tea are Taiwan, Guangzhou, Southern and Northern Fujian. There are famous oolong teas with different distinctive characteristics which derived directly from the local soil, water and the whole grown environment, and the customs of making procedures is the other main reason.

The percentage of ferment in Northern Fujian Province is heavier than other oolong tea production zones, it is between 45% and 75%. The mountains in this area is composed of rock, and the tea is growing in the gap between the rocks which causing the tea has a special flavor of Osmanthus. Owing to the different mountains and the different types of tea bushes, there are many different flavors of oolong tea produced in Wuyi zone. Besides the most well-known Dahongpao, there are many other famous teas in this production zone, such as Shuixian, Baijiguan, Tieluohan and so on.

The percentage of ferment in Southern Fujian Province production zone is between 25% and 50%. It is said that this area is the origin and the earliest place to produce oolong tea, and according to the related files, it is established in 1725. Then it is spread to Northern Fujian Province, Guangdong and Taiwan Provinces. It is found that oolong tea has a function of losing weight in 1970s, until then the oolong tea had become a kind of popular tea in Japan and other western countries. There are many well-known oolong teas born in this area because choosing different types of tea bush as the material to make the tea, such as Tieguanyin, Huangjingui, Benshan,etc.

The percentage of ferment in Guangdong Province zone is between 35% and 65%. The oolong tea produced in this area mainly comes from Mountain Phoenix, Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province. Compared with the oolong tea produced in Northern Fujian Province, the characteristics of oolong tea in this area is similar with it except that all the names of Dancong oolong tea in Mountain Phoenix are given by their different kinds of fragrance.

Mixiang  honey an orchid taste

Guihuaxiang osmanthus taste

Xinrenxiang almond taste

The percentage of ferment in Taiwan Province production zone is between 25% and 55%. There are two sorts of oolong teas produced in this area. One is slightly fermented Wenshanbaozhong with loosen dry leaves appearance. The other one is lightly fermented Dongding produced in Nantou County, with a tight and in the shape of hemisphere dry leaves appearance. Except the tea above mentioned, there are other famous teas, such as Dongfangmeiren, Alishan oolong and so on.

 

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Dahongpao

Dahongpao is the most special one in Chinese oolong tea, and also known as the King of oolong tea for its heavy fragrance and pure obvious flavor of osmanthus aftertaste. The bright and dark green dry leaves appearance is long but thick and strong, the tea soup is golden reddish, and the spent leaves is green and red crossed and can be brewed for many times.

Anxi Tieguanyin

Anxi Tieguanyin comes from Xiping, Anxi County. It is a special tea bush chosen as the raw material of this kind of tea with the same making procedures of oolong tea, and the tight and heavy dry leaves appearance is beautiful and tidy. Tea leaves are picked at the end of April and the beginning of May is spring tea, and picked between June and August is the summer tea, and picked at the beginning of October is autumn tea. The tight and sand green dry leaves appearance is rich of fresh and strong special taste with golden and bright tea liquor.

Dongding oolong tea

Dongding oolong tea is a kind of Baozhong tea in the shape of hemisphere. The tea bush was brought to Taiwan and planted there in 1885. The name comes from the planted place Dongding. The tight and dark green dry leaves appearance is in the shape of hemisphere. The tea liquor is crystal and in the color of honey, fresh and flowery fragrance with heavy taste and can be brewed for many times.

Pour the tea liquor into the fair cup from the tea pot, and then distribute the tea liquor into each sipping cup. It is a custom to pour 70% tea liquor into a tea cup and the left the 30% of tea cup for convenience.