How to brew green tea with a gaiwan 盖碗

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A covered cup, gaiwan 盖碗 is great for making green tea. It has three parts, a saucer, a cup and a lid. They come in different sizes. If you have small hands, buy one that’s not too large so that it’s easy to grasp. Here’s what it looks like.

 

 

 

In addition to the gaiwan, we will need a small pitcher, a strainer and some small cups. The pitcher and the strainer can be normal ones from your kitchen. The 茶杯 cups, however, only hold about one ounce and don't have handles.

 

 

Let's first brew a thin-leaf green. The one I have handy is a Yunnan Maofeng 云南毛峰 from Youle Mountain  攸乐山 in Xishuangbanna Prefecture. Many parts of China produce similar green tea, with Huangshan Maofeng 黄山毛峰 probably being the most famous.

 

Even though this Youleshan Maofeng is is not particularly distinguished, it's still a decent early-spring tea with a mild and pleasant flavor. Good in the morning and real inexpensive.

 

Here's what the tea leaves look like on a saucer and in the bottom of the gaiwan.

 

 

Rinse the gaiwan with hot water and pour it from there into the pitcher. From the pitcher, pour the hot water into the cups. That way, all containers are heated. Use the wooden tweezers to empty the hot water from the cups.

 

 

Add the tea leaves to the gaiwan. Use enough to fill it about a quarter of the way up. There are formulae for how many grams of tea per how many milliliters of water, but they are difficult to apply in daily life.

 

Rule of thumb for green tea is use more leaves than you think you need. If you find you've used too many, you can take some out and next time start with a smaller amount.

 

Fill the gaiwan with hot water. Remember that it should not be boiling. 85 C or so is fine for this tea; 80 C if you wish. After a few seconds, 20 or 30, pour it through the strainer into the small pitcher. You can do this a second time before distribution, before you serve your guests from the pitcher.

 

Afterwards set the gaiwan lid against the saucer; do not close it up. You don't want the tea leaves to "stew" and develop an unpleasant flavor.

 

Here's how you hold the gaiwan for pouring. Notice that the lid is put on crooked to allow a crack through which to pour.

 

 

Your underneath fingers and your thumb are holding the thickest part of the gaiwan, which helps because the whole thing is hot. I would suggest trying to pour with your gaiwan several times using plain cool tap water before progressing to live ammo.

 

Repeat as needed. On subsequent steeps, let it stand a little longer. Most green teas when made like this are good for half a dozen steeps. Not critical to remember an actual magic number; if it gets weak and uninteresting, just toss those leaves out and start a new batch.

 

This is the basics of gaiwan use for making green tea. In a subsequent post we will do it again using a different green tea and talk about refinements. My main goal today has been to demystify the process and give you a useable, no-frills starting point.

 

If you are already advanced, you will doubtless find this approach overly crude and simple so I apologize for that and welcome your input.

[Shelley]

I am going to go out tomorrow and buy some teas and i will try this one in the next couple of days.

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That should be a fine adventure, Shelley. I wish you great success. Maybe you will meet a clerk at the store who knows a lot. Remember to try using the gaiwan several times with plain cool tap water before doing it with hot water.

 

What we did in class was to first do several "mock brewings" with cool water, going through the whole process -- all the above steps, even rinsing the cups. Then we rehearsed with warm water (not boiling) but no tea leaves. When we had it all down pretty well, then we tried it with hotter water and just a few tea leaves. Then we did it "for real."

 

The teacher would circulate through the class, stopping at each student's bench, sipping our results and giving constructive comments. "Oh, it tastes like you didn't use enough tea leaves. Let's have a look. (Takes off the top of my gaiwan.) Yep. Take your gaiwan and go look at hers and his, do a side by side comparison, and also taste a cup of their tea. See if you don't think it tastes better than yours."

 

"Now save back some of your not so good brewed tea and then do it all again using more leaves. Compare your first batch with your second. See what you think."

 

She could also "diagnose" other problems, such as "Your water wasn't hot enough" or "You steeped it too long" just from tasting a sip of it. She would make you try again, taking pains to correct that specific error. I found it amazing and very helpful. 

 

She, and the other teachers, kept emphasizing the point that so much of how tea tastes in the cup is technique. As a beginner several years ago I had naively assumed that the only thing which really counted was the quality of the tea leaves. I figured everything else would sort of magically take care of itself.

 

This kind of practical coursework stood my naive opinions on their head. Very humbling experience to be proved wrong over and over. But it presented a golden chance to learn.

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Wanted to show you another way to hold the gaiwan.

 

 

Index finger on the center of the lid. Pour through the crack. Thumb and middle finger hold the lip. Other fingers tucked out of the way.

 

People who use the gaiwan a lot are graceful and make it look effortless. It's really not when you first start. So if you find it awkward, don't be discouraged. Practice helps. Remember to start with cool water from the tap, just to get the feel of the system.

 

 

This is the Yunnan Youle Shan Maofeng, mentioned upthread. Wanted to give you an idea of volume, and let you see what the leaves look like when wet. Always spread a few out like this to better appreciate their structure. It's one of the way you tell good tea from second rate. 

 

Not a lot of stems. Only the terminal bud and one or two small, tender, young leaves. High grade stuff. Smooth, slightly floral taste, almost sweet at first. That's the 口感。The aftertaste 后感 is a little grassy. Overall delicate but not wimpy. Good tea in the morning. Good tea for late spring and early summer, right about now.

 

A footnote on aftertaste 后感。The way to best appreciate that feature of your tea is to take a mouth breath after swallowing. When that air hits the back of the tongue and palate, it produces a taste sensation that's different from what you get at first. Always pause to do that with a new tea once or twice. Focus on it as a separate part of the experience.

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Making Biluochun 碧螺春 tea with the gaiwan 盖碗。

 

We've been talking about making green tea with the gaiwan in this thread, but have only illustrated the process thus far with Maofeng 毛峰 tea. Since good green tea often comes rolled in small "pearls" instead of just being loose leaves and buds, I thought it might be helpful to talk about it too at this early stage.

 

Really isn't all that different from the steps described above. The main difference is knowing how much tea to use. Here's how I do that, without resorting to precision measuring tools.

 

 

First a refresher on how the gaiwan looks. And indulge me further with a refresher on how Biluochun 碧螺春 looks as well, just sprinkled on a saucer.

 

If you look closely at the inside of your gaiwan, you will see two concentric bottom circles, one larger than the other. This is difficult to illustrate well in a photo, so I've taken several shots hoping that one or two are clear. I've even put a 1 Yuan coin 硬币 down there as a graphic helper.

 

 

The reason all this matters is that it's how you know how much tea to use. With a pearl-rolled tea that I'm making for the first time, I use enough to cover the larger circle in a single layer. If that turns out to be too strong, I adjust the amount of tea next time, using only enough to cover the inner circle.

 

It's a "by-eye" measurement, and not precise. Sometimes I wind up using an amount between the smaller circle and the larger circle. I also ask my guest whether he or she prefers tea that is 浓一点 (stronger; nóng yīdiǎn  ) or 淡一点的 (weaker; dàn yīdiǎn.)

 

Here's what that looks like. Pearls covering only the small circle and pearls covering the large circle. Remember, only a single layer, not a heap. This tea is compact and expands a lot when it comes into contact with hot water.

 

 

Then proceed to brew it as you would with the Maofeng tea, described above: warm the chabei first, etc.