On The Topic of Gongfu Tea

Hi folks, Carter here!

Today we’re going to do a very quick break down of Gongfu Cha, also known as Kung Fu Tea. If confused, Cha means tea, and since I'm shooting for bonus points, here is its Chinese character: 茶

As a quick definition, Gong Fu Cha might appear to refer to Chinese martial arts, but when you break it down, Gong Fu literally means (roughly) “to labor with skill”. So Gong Fu Cha really just means to make tea with skill. As a side note, we Chinese would actually refer to Chinese martial arts as Wushu rather than Kung Fu. One other thing you'll see commonly on guides for Gongfu tea is the emphasis on leaf-to-water ratio. Agreed but honestly they make it sound like the end of the world. You only need 2-3 table spoons, that stuff blows up you know? It happens with real leaves and not tea bag dregs.

Tools / Utensils

We’re going to keep it simple here, hot water, vessel, strainer, cup. At its core and in its essence, that’s really all you need. Kettle to make hot water, vessel to make tea in (traditionally a Yixing clay teapot and/or a Gaiwan cup), a strainer to strain (you can use the two in one push-pots, we sell them, it’s not blasphemous), and a cup to drink from.

If you’re fancy, which admittedly we are, you want all this sitting on top of a nicely sized tea tray (which we will carry).

Now that’s just what we run with and are going to run with. The whole nine yards includes an entire plethora more in tools. Would explain those here but that’s not the experience we want you to have. For us, as we will emphasize in person and in the future, tea is a medium for conversation, first and foremost. Adding too much to the ceremony takes away from said conversation and instead becomes a novelty. If you’re curious what the (many) other tools are, there are already plenty of other much more technical guides out there.

Times and Temps

Don't want to confuse you so we're putting temps in a quick table:

If you compare our times and temps with other sites you will most definitely find slight differences, honestly it's not too big of a deal, it's not chemistry.

Okay, maybe it is chem, but a few degrees won't ruin it, not too much at least.

As for times, always remember that a good tea leaf can always be used more than once, generally 6-7 steeps. Past the 4th or 5th you would steep a little bit longer. And ALWAYS start with a quick rinse using the same temp water you would for the steeps. Besides that, we have a very simple guide:

0. Rinse, water in water out, dump.
1. First steep, leave in for 10-15 seconds.
2. Second to fourth steeps, water in water out, quick steeps.
3. Fifth to seventh steep, leave in for 10+ seconds. Adjust as you go.

As a side note and quick tip on temperature, assuming you don’t have a special kettle like ours (which we sell and you can get here), you can also run with the baby bottle method. That being to just hold it to your wrist, if it’s touchable but still hot then it’s good to use! Probably within the 180-190F range. Conversely, I trust you not to slap your wrist on a fresh boiled pot of water.

End Note

Now, with all the technical bits said and done, it’s not really meant to restrict you. At the end of the day, people have preferences. Even Lee and I have slight differences preferences. The technicalities are meant to be guidelines. If you want to leave it in for minutes at a time, that's fine too, brews are fine as long as you don't waste the following brews because I can guarantee you it will still have flavor. That being said, we only ask that you do two things if not following the simple guide:

1. Don’t burn your tea. To be fair, the technical temps have an enormous range so you have a lot of room to play with.

2. Don’t waste steepings. Once you start, commit, It’s one thing to not use it nine times, it’s a whole other to not even use it twice.

That’s all from me today folks, I bid you a pleasant day, and an even more pleasant morrow.

Regards,

Carter