10.13.09
The green tea ritual (Part 1 of 2)
posted by James Norwood Pratt | 4 comments
An ingenious invention that has been in use in China since the earliest days of the Ming dynasty - circa 1350 - is the simplest, most satisfying way of enjoying loose leaf tea. It is decidedly the best way to get the most enjoyment from green teas, for which it was originally developed, though it lends itself to making others also.
I speak of the covered cup called a guywan in Mandarin or chazhong in Cantonese. It is a brewing vessel and drinking cup in one which consists of saucer, bowl, and lid that function together. Guywans are hard to find in the U.S. but it’s hard to imagine doing without it once you finally acquire one. The guywan is another of those Chinese inventions like paper and printing and china itself - the simplest way of preparing and enjoying tea all day and night long. Use a guywan a time or two and you feel as though you’ve been handling one all your life.
In brief, you simply put a pinch of tea leaf in the cup, pour on the water, and watch the leaves steep. The lid is used to stir the tea, to serve as filter holding back the leaves when you sip, and to cover the cup and keep the liquor warm. You keep sipping and adding water for as long as the leaves will yield flavor. Now that you have the idea, you can appreciate refinements of these steps.
Enough tea for a single cup is heaped in the bottom where it may be seen to best advantage against the whiteness of the porcelain. (The appearance of the tea leaf before, during and after steeping is highly important to the Chinese.) Water is not poured directly onto the leaf, but onto one side of the guywan, producing a swirl in the cup. The leaves swirl and gradually become saturated and sink to form a floating forest in the bottom of your cup. You unhurriedly watch this ballet of the leaf as its dissolving juices color the water until after a minute or less you deem it time for a first exploratory sip, sometimes without waiting for all the leaf to sink.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:21 am
A question from somebody on the first steps of the journey:
how do you avoid having ALL the leaves floating (which is what happens to me at least with Mao Feng and Bai Mu Dan tea and White Monkey leaves) ?
I understand I should either
- push away the leaves with the lid and drink.. which proves impossible to do, I still get a mouthful of leaves
- or drink with the lid on, in this way I always just get a few drops of tea at a time if I press on the lid, or tea and small parts of leaves if I don’t press.
So for now I’m just using the lid to strain the tea in another (warm) cup and drink from that while the next infusion is steeping.
Maybe I just need a bigger gaiwan: this one is rather small, it takes about 50cc or 1.7 oz (Google says: US fluid ounces). Could you publish a picture with a hand holding your typical gaiwan ?
October 14th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I’m hoping that one of our readers will be able to take a photo of their system.
My first thought is that you’re using too much tea. Another issue may be quality. I know that high quality tea will sink however lower grades of tea will not.
Using a gaiwan is a learned skill. Be patient.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
so true… and downright poetic!
October 15th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Thanks everybody.
As a matter of fact I realized I’m just pouring - not on the side, no swirl, I’ll try that.
My gaiwan is a bit smaller than the one depicted here.
Also it is made of white ceramic but I don’t think that matters.
I’m using one pinch of tea (three fingered), but I’m learning alone so I didn’t ever really see anybody pinching and am still wondering how full a pinch should be - maybe I’m really using too much tea and compensating with lower infusion times. I’ll experiment