How to make a good cup of tea?
Once we have a good tea leaves, it still doesn't mean we can make a good tea. Some teas are more difficult than others to prepare properly and is the skill we are developing for all life. Some people are going as far as devoting their life to developing this skill and eventually become a tea master. Although this word is being often misused, there are still some real tea masters among us, often humble and unrecognised.
Meanwhile, before we get into that stage, we can be developing our basic skills. They are helpful
tools that helps us to make better use of the precious leaves.
Here are some basic rules that might be helpful to you.
Time
It's good before making a tea is to ask question “Do I have time to drink tea?”
If you have a meeting in 40 minutes, still didn't dressed up, and think of making tea, Maybe its not good time to make tea. With tea, you want to relax and really enjoy your time.
Maybe you can observe your daily routine and find the best time for your tea. If you love tea it will happen naturally.
Water
Tea is more than 99 percent water.
Therefore we must use good one for our tea.
Even the best tea leaves can be spoiled by bad quality water. Here in Taiwan water is very soft and nice to make tea. But I know in Europe and many other places, the water is very hard. I encourage you to find your best source of water.
Traditionally, Chinese believe that best water is fresh spring water; second is a river water; and the last option is well (not moving) water. Although ancient Chinese didn't have advantage of tap water. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't consider this as an good option. But, today if that's the only option you have, I at least recommend to filter your water properly with carbon filter. Much more I encourage you though to find your fresh spring. You might be surprised, there might be good source of fresh spring water near your home.
Tea Vessels
Another important thing is proper vessel.
Mistake people often do, is that their tea vessel is too big. If the tea vessel is too big, Qi of the tea will be to 'loose' and it will have a flat taste. Therefore biggest pot is always for the hot water and tea is in the small pot 'gaiwan' in which tea can be brewed many many times.
Good quality tea can be easily brewed over 10 times, sometimes over 20 times while tea has still its its spark.
So in general more people on table doesn't mean bigger teapot. Even if you are serving tea for 4 or more people, your teapot doesn't need to be bigger than 150cc.
Tea Amount
This depends widely on the kind of tea you have.
Some people enjoy to be more scientific about this and use a scale.
Let’s say for 120cc teapot 6g of oolong 5g of sheng Pu-Erh, 8g of shu…etc (just an example).
I’m doing it purely by feeling. After years looking at the leaves, I pretty much know how much to put in. If you are not sure though, I recommend you put less at the beginning. By time you will develop an eye.
Temperature and brewing time
This depends on tea you have in your teapot.
Often green or red teas are brewed at lower temperature, but some will much more prefer very hot water.
To help the leaves to release Qi we might use hot water. This surely apply for Pu-Erh or Hei-Cha. But some tea might get too strong or bitter, then it’s case to lower the temperature.
The brewing time is also very individual and I'm also guided purely by feeling but there is help for beginners in gong-fu to 'count the breaths'.
When leaves brewed first time we count five breaths. Next brew six breaths, than seven and so on..
Although it might not work with all the teas, it will help you to get some general idea about steeping time .