Gongfu brewing is the Chinese method of making tea in small amounts, with more leaf and much less water, poured off again and again. It sounds fussy. In practice it is the simplest way to taste what a tea can actually do.
What you need
You do not need much: a small vessel, a way to pour it off cleanly, and cups small enough to drink from while the water is still hot. A gaiwan or a small kyusu both work well. If you have our gongfu starter kit, you already have the gaiwan, two bowls and a strainer.
Step by step
Warm the vessel with hot water and pour it away. This matters more than it sounds: a cold pot drops the temperature of the first infusion and the leaf never quite wakes up.
Measure the leaf generously, about 4 g for 150 ml of water. Use water just off the boil for oolong, cooler for green tea. Pour it on, then pour it off again almost at once. This first pour is a rinse; it warms the leaf and carries off the dust, and we usually tip it away.
Now brew in short infusions. Ten seconds for the first, then add a few seconds each time. Pour off every drop, because leaf left sitting in water turns bitter.
- Warm the vessel and pour the water away.
- Use about 4 g of leaf for 150 ml.
- Rinse the leaf with a quick first pour.
- Start at ten seconds and lengthen each infusion.
- Pour off every drop before the next one.
- Stop when the tea goes flat, usually after five or six cups.
Why it is worth it
Brewed this way, a single oolong gives five or six cups that change as you go: floral at the start, then buttery, then a softer, sweeter finish. A big pot flattens all of that into one taste. The gongfu method lays it out cup by cup.
It is also forgiving. If the first cup is too strong, shorten the next one; if it is thin, give the leaf a little longer. You learn the tea by adjusting as you drink, which is the whole pleasure of it.
A note on the leaf
Gongfu suits rolled oolongs and whole-leaf teas best, because they hold up to repeated steeping. Very fine leaf, such as a fannings-heavy breakfast blend, releases everything at once and goes flat after a cup or two, so it is better brewed in a larger pot in the usual way.
White tea and roasted oolong, on the other hand, are made for it. Give them a slightly cooler water and they will keep giving for many infusions.
One last thing: keep the water hot. Between infusions, many people let the kettle go cold and then boil it hard again, which flattens the next cup. Keep the kettle topped up, or pour the remaining water into a thermos, and the session stays even from the first cup to the last. A small teapot with a lid does the same job.
