I drink tea daily, different kinds at different places. If circumstances prevent me from drinking good tea I drink not-so-good teas, but at most cases I’m trying to drink the best tea possible prepared in the way it should be prepared.I especially like the tea prepared in gong fu style – it calms me down and tunes me in to enjoy the tea. Since at office I have neither the required staidness nor the tea equipment I need, I developed my “gong fu light” tea ceremony.
All I need is a thermos, a yixing teapot and a teacup large enough to hold the whole capacity of yixing. The preparation is easy:
- Fill the thermos with boiling water. It actually cools down a bit, so the water temperature should be 85-95 Celsius.
- Pour the water on the tea leaves, wait 10 seconds and spill the tea into the teacup.
- Repeat step two.
That way I can enjoy some rather good oolongs in my office without troubling myself too much.
4 comments:
I need to set up mine in my office. Something simple, so that others won't think of me too weirdly. :)
Don't worry, you will get used to that puzzled look.
Just few notes:
- tea, when spilled over the notebook makes a perfect cleaning agent
- colleagues are OK, the really weird look will be seen on faces of random visitors
- do NOT allow strong detergents to be used on your tea equipment by over-enthusiastic char
Hi. I was really happy to read your post regarding Gong Fu tea in office as I am doing my final year project regarding teaware in office context. Do you mind I interview you? just to ask you a few questions. It's because I need to know the user behavior of making chinese tea in office in order for me to design a tea set which is best to use in office. This is my email add: koaysiwei@hotmail.com, if you don't mind, can we discuss further through email? thanks a lot! looking forward for your reply! :)
I stumbled across this while seeking further information on gongfu brewing. I too have a very simplified gongfu setup in my office: I have a large ceramic teapot for my English and Indian teas, but I also love Taiwanese wulongs and find my tiny clay pot (not technically a Yixing, but serving the same purpose) absolutely essential for capturing their character. Despite the excellence of the full ceremony and the convenience of a tray with a catchbasin, I've found that a pot of the right size is really all that's absolutely necessary (and a few towels -- even simplified and abbreviated, there's a fair bit of spillage).
My tea-making is fueled by a water boiler with temperature-control (set to 195 degrees) rather than a thermos, which is the only modification I'd recommend to your otherwise excellent process.
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