Another post about tea.

I know I make too many posts about tea. But I don't care, it is a regular subject for me. I would like to explain how it is I make tea.

It may shock you to learn that there are different practices, theories even, about the proper way to make oolong. I use what they call the kung-fu method. It has nothing to do with the martial art. I think it probably has something to do with the Confucian tradition though.

Anyway, this method involves two unique things that you might not have realized: The teapot must be pre-heated so that the tea brews well. Also, the teapot is nearly filled with tea leaves. You use a lot of leaves, and you infuse for only a short time. These are pictures:

This is the bag the tea comes in. There is a lot of it, so I left it in the bag rather than put it in a tin.


These are the tea leaves in question, pouchong which is an oolong that the chinese call 'green tea', loosely translated of course. They call tea colours based on the color of the leaves rather than on the colour of the steeped tea. In chinese, black tea = red tea, oolong tea = black dragon tea, pouchong = green tea, green tea = yellow tea, etc.

Here are my teapots, of course. I am using the one on the right for pouchong and ti kuan yin. The smaller one is for tung ting/ten lu/ten wu oolongs exclusively.

It has a little squirrel on top, but his tail is broken off. How sad. I still have the tail, for some reason, I kept it.

Anyway, making tea begins at this point 1 time out of 5. Cleaning the teapot. It is gross until you are used to it. There is something upsetting about slimey gooey old tea leaves on your hands.

After nearly all of the leaves are scooped and wiped out, I take the teapot to the sink and rinse it out with hot water, removing old leaves and pre-warming the teapot. This is a picture from before I had done that.

Here are the leaves in the pot, ready for the water.


This is my electric tea kettle.

Here is the glowing red light on my kettle to show it is on. I use boiling water for tea. A lot of tea sites will tell you just hot water for green and oolong. They are wrong, ok. Just use boiling water. Not full boiling, but just when the bubbles start to move to the top.

These are the cups I use, just regular old cups.


After the water has been in there for 5 seconds, it is time to pour into the cups. This is the moment of truth. pour!




I really need a haircut


Oh, I should give a special tribute to my tea towel. He is responsible for soaking up all tea and water off of the desk and tea boats before any damage occurs. That is why he is so stained. He used to be white.