The most ceremonial Chinese tea drinking - Gong Fu cha. Part II
After all participants got acquainted with the tea, we can step to the second stage of the ceremony - warming up the tea - service. The tea - pot, pitcher and tea pairs (without saucer) are put on the table and poured over with hot water (from the thermos). Hot water is also poured into the tea-pot - and from it all pieces of tea service are swilled again. Thus the tea service is warmed up and cleared from additional odors and dust, moreover all evil spirits are conjured away.
I should also mention here that tea-pot for the Gong Fu cha tea ceremonies must be of red sand clay. In China you have to dig very deeply to extract this particular kind of clay. It is all hand made, not shaped on a wheel. Since it is not glazed, it is considered raw. Tea pitcher and tea pairs can be of glass, porcelain or also clay - to your taste. The table, you manipulate on, is also a complicated construction. It should have holes, through which water and tea can flow down.
Thus, the tea service is quickly rinsed and warmed up, water is drained out into the special bowl. The tea-pot for brewing is filled with the dry tea and hot water so that the water was overflowing a bit from its nose when you cover the tea-pot with a lid. After this water from the tea-pot is immediately poured into the pitcher. You will ask - why? The tea was not allowed to steep!
The first fill is not used! Thus you rinse your tea-pot again and warm it up and get rid of previous flavours. This tea-pot with soaked tea leaves and without water should be wrapped round with a towel and shaken several times ( it is recommended to shake 9 times or the multiple 9 times). While this the tea pot fills with the tea flavour - and certainly it should be sniffed. The tea-pot is circling and all participants lift the lid a bit and smell. The main feature here is not to burn yourself with the hot air. This procedure is called - second acquaintance with the tea. Right after it the tea-drinking process starts.
The tea pot is again filled with hot water so that small amount of water was pressed out when you cover the tea-pot with the lid. This tea-pot with the lid is again poured over with the hot water. The right tea-pot (thin -walled, well conducting warmth), when poured over with hot water, is a real wonder to look at!
Water moistens the tea-pot surface (it is surely clay) and the latter changes its colour for the "wet" and then quite quickly evaporates from the surface and the colour changes for the dry one. Right after this second change the tea is poured out from the tea-pot into the pitcher, you can also shake the tea-pot before it - to make pouring the tea out easier.
The first Chinese trick is that tea is not allowed to steep. In less than a minute, the you should pour the tea into small narrow cups. Experienced tea-drinkers do not pour one cup at a time.
Instead the cups are arranged in a circle and the server pours the tea in all of them in one go. Fill the cups just over half way. The Chinese believe that the rest of the cup is filled with friendship and affection.
The second Chinese trick implies tea pairs and the manner of tea-drinking from them.
Tea pairs consist not only of usual cup and saucer, but of the small oblong cups, large enough to hold about two small swallows of tea, and tea bowl ( with the volume about 20- 30 ml). This oblong cup and tea bowl are standing on the special saucer and represent a quite artistic composition. Moreover it is believed that in this composition the oblong cup symbolizes the machismo - Yang, and the tea bowl denotes woman - Yin.
So the tea is first poured into the oblong tea-cups of all participants of the tea ceremony and then these cups are covered with the tea bowls, thus composition represents amusing agarics, which can be interpreted as Yang and Yin joining. This agaric should be turned upside-down so that the tea bowl was in the bottom. Experienced people make it with one hand but you can do it with two hands in order not to burn yourself.
After the construction is turned over, carefully raise the cup (the tea pours into the tea bowl) and smell it. The point is that the form of the cup allows to keep the concentrated odour of the drink - and it is easier to taste and to feel it. The cup will be keeping the flavour until it gets cold.
Thus from the oblong cup you scent the tea and from the tea bowl you drink the tea. Such separate perception of the tea allows to appreciate the combination of the flavour and taste at their true value.
After the tea-pot is emptied, it should be filled in again with boiling water (usually water with the constant temperature is kept in a thermos), again poured over with the hot water and again shaken a bit and the tea from it is poured out into the pitcher. This procedure can be repeated as many times as you wish until you stop feeling its taste and smell. From brewing to brewing it takes longer and longer to infuse the tea properly.
Different sorts of Oolong tea are good for different number of brewings. The first two pourings are to discover the flavour of the tea, starting from the third pouring the taste of the tea begins dominating and the flavor wanes. Usually Gong Fu cha takes about 6- 7 circles, not more, as there is no sense to drink the tea, offering only the trace of its real taste and flavour.
When the tea is drunk out and smelled out you can extract soft tea leaves from the tea-pot, they should fully occupy the inner space in the tea-pot. These leaves are pleasant to look at, they are wet, glitter and smell very attractively.
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