Making Tea with Gaiwan Sets

Series Summary

Tea is characterized as the most mystical and healing of all the beverages. With the variety of flavors, tea seems to perfect drink for any occasion. As Chinese legend describes, tea originated by divine intervention. A legendary emperor was sitting in the grass sometime around 2737 B.C. As he was pondering life, he drank a bowl of boiling water when all of a sudden leaves blew into his bowl. When he looked down, he noticed that the water had started to change color. The ever inquisitive and curious monarch took a sip of the brew and was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and its restorative properties. However, due to the desire that tea arouses, one creation myth can not possibly be enough to explain the beginnings of tea. Another legend claims that the founder of the Zen school of Buddhism discovered the beverage. Regardless of truth to these myths, tea has played a significant role in Asian culture for centuries as a staple beverage, a curative and a symbol of status. In this free video series our expert on tea will teach you how to make tea. You will learn about how to make tea with a professional tea set, how to use an artisan tea globe and how to use a tea spoon. You will also learn about the benefits of baking tea and how to bake tea. If you are interested in different ways to make tea, let our expert show you everything you need to know about brewing tea.

Video Transcript

"We're talking about tea today and now I'm going to go over a way of brewing tea that's called Gong Fu Tsa or Gong Fu tea brewing. And Gong Fu tea brewing is divided into two sections, there's Gong Fu brin with Yixing or a clay tea pot and then there's Gong Fu brin with this type of a lidded bowl and that's what this is called in Chinese, is a Guy Wan, which means the lidded bowl. The tea I'm going to brew is this green Oolong with the twisted shape called the Want Siam Baljong. So when brewing this type of tea, it's important to remember that this tea is already, it's a twisted leaf so it's not so dense, so you can use more leaf mass here. So I've added the tea, now I'm going to add some water, and this water is about 190-200 degrees, which is a good temperature for this type of tea. And if you think the water is too hot, you can add it a little bit slower and let it fall from a greater height and then that way the water will cool as you're adding it to the Guy Wan. Now I have the water and I add the lid. And I'm going to let that infuse for thirty seconds to a minute. Now, we've let it sit for about a minute and I'm going to pour the tea out of the Guy Wan. And now we have the tea ready to serve. So that's how you brew the tea with the Guy Wan and now remember that I can brew, I can re-infuse this tea for six to ten infusions. And that's a little bit about brewing with the Guy Wan."