How to do Gong Fu Style Tea Brewing

January 06, 2019 0 Comments

What is Gong Fu Style tea brewing (GFS)? Must the tea be brewed by gong fu practitioners like Bruce Lee, Jet Lee or Jackie Chan?

Of course not! GFS basically means tea brewing which requires the skills, timing and more effort compared to western style brewing. Therefore, the tea brewers need to know more about the tea, different tea are brew at different degrees of water. This really needs Gong Fu to brew a good cup of tea!

It originated during the Song Dynasty (AD960 - AD1279) and more commonly found in the southern regions of China like Fujian, Guangdong and Chao Zhou. Over the years, it had become a popular way of tea brewing and today it can be found in most of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Even the Westerners are really keen in the GFS.

But why GFS? It is to extract the different flavours of the tea through multiple infusions without extracting the bitter taste. GFS takes only seconds to infuse the tea leaves in hot water. Throughout the course of infusion, different flavours will be extracted over the course of about an hour. Therefore it is crucial to use more leaves, less water and less infusion time, we only want the pleasant taste and experience the different flavours over time. Small cups are used in order to savour the taste, remember GFS brewing purpose is to appreciate the taste and is not to hydrate. Small cups also cool the tea much faster compared to a normal mug size.

GFS typically requires smaller size brewing equipment, typically it consists of a Tea Pot, Tea Cups, Fairness Cup, Strainer, Tongs, Tea Tray. These are the basic equipments to kick start your tea brewing! As you dive deeper into GFS, there are other equipments like Smelling Cup, Brush, Tea Pet etc. Today we are just going to introduce the basic equipments.

Photo courtesy from Red Blossom Tea Wholesale

Tea Pot - To infuse whole tea leaves in hot water.
Fairness Cup - Tea from Tea Pot will be poured into fairness cup, to ensure same quality of tea is serve to everyone.
Tea Cups - For your friends and family members to consume the tea.
Tea Tray - To capture overflowing water and tea leaves.

Tea Strainer - To capture tea leaves and tea dust from Tea Pot. We do sell the tea strainer. Link from image.

Photo courtesy from Red Blossom Tea Wholesale

6. Bamboo Tong - To rinse/handle the hot tea cups

Gong Fu Style Brewing Steps

Step 1. Rinse the Tea pot & Cups with hot water, purpose is to warm up the pot and cups so that during brewing, the pot and cups will not divert the heat needed to brew the tea. And also it aids in sterilising the teawares.

Step 2. Leaves are added to the Tea Pot and hot water is pour in. Fill up the water to the brim of the tea pot and pour away the first infusion. We call this 'rinsing of tea', there are mainly 2 purposes. 1st is to “awake” the tea leaves and 2nd is to wash away any tea dust or particles which might be introduced during processing of the tea leaves. Remember to always remove the lid after brewing, purpose is not to “cook” the tea leaves by cooling them down.

Step 3. Add hot water into the Tea Pot again. After infusion of about 10 - 30 seconds(depending on the tea type). Pour the tea into the fairness cup. Again, fairness cup is to allow everyone to have the same taste of tea.

Step 4. Repeat step 3 and gradually increase the infusion time for each brew till the tea loses its flavour.

To summarise, GFS definitely doesn't need someone who knows Gong Fu to brew! Its meaning is this style of brewing requires work, effort and knowledge. GFS can be very simple by just following the steps I had mentioned, there are of course, more in depth knowledge but for us to enjoy the tea we can simply use this method.

Do check out our tea set to try out your Gong Fu Style Brewing!

Here's another simplified way of brewing the Gong Fu Tea. Our All-Time favourite Kamjove Press Art Tea Pot. Link from image.

An engineered auto-open lid of seal designed to preserve the tea fragrance. It has an integrated structure of the tea pot which do not need to remove the inner filter pot when pouring to another cup(which acts like the fairness cup). Interlock of the inner pot to secure it with a press vale water controlling button, which allows you to infuse the tea on the timing that you want. It works just like a Gong Fu Tea Set!

Why Gong Fu Style Brewing is highly recommended?

Because we can taste the different flavours of the tea as each infusion brings out the different aroma and essence of it. Furthermore in my opinion, it greatly relaxes our body and mind during the tea drinking process. And also, it brings back the social interaction between humans as we tend to have conversation throughout the tea session as compared to the addiction that humans have with mobile phone nowadays!