gaiwan

Step One: Enlist some tea loving friends. Step Two: Add 7g of leaf to a 100 ml gaiwan (preheated). Replace lid. Allow your guests to appreciate the fragrance of the dry leaves in the hot gaiwan by smelling the edge of the lid, then replacing the lid and passing to the next guest. Step Three: Pour boiling water to the top of the gaiwan. Use the lid to remove the bubbles that form on the surface of the tea in a single, horizontal scraping motion.

Using room temperature water in the inner tea bowl, boiled water in the outer bowl, slowly brings up the temperature of the leaves. Adjust the time from 30-60 seconds depending on the thickness of your gaiwan (thicker walls, more time.) This will give your greens a much different character. Steps: Preheat gaiwan Add room temperature water to faircup Add leaves to gaiwan Fill gaiwan with water from faircup Steep for 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on thickness.

Our good friend at The Mandarin’s Tea has spent the better part of a month researching, experimenting, and practicing to share his findings on Long Jing with us. As you might expect, trying to pack the level of detail the Mandarin is known for into a short blog post makes for some very dense verbiage, and you might not catch everything that was intended. Hoping for forgiveness, I am breaking down what I learned from this post into practical application.

A work in progress - I’d like to look this cool!