Taiwanese tea ceremony: 工夫茶道

The way of making tea with great skill

I've had the pleasure to see and experience the Taiwanese tea ceremony two times, the first time in Taichung with Cherry and second time in Jiufen with Lily. The name of the the tea ceremony in Chinese is 工夫茶道 (pronounced as Gōngfu chádào). I will show you how the ceremony is held, teach you all the steps, so you can try and do it yourself, if you're interested in the tradition. But first let me explain the meaning of some words, because they may not be familiar to you:

1. 工夫: gōng fu or commonly kung fu means "skill" (composed of words 工: work and 夫: man)¹. You may know the word, because is commonly used for Chinese martial arts, usually written as 功夫². But in Chinese kung fu means skill of any kind, in this case a skill of making great tea. [1][2]
   
   
2. 茶: chá means "tea". Even the Slovenian word for tea - čaj (pronounced chai) derives from this word. Tea originated in China and with the it's popularity all over the world, the Chinese name spread all over the world as well. But in two versions, either as tê (from Hokkien dialect) or as chá (from Cantonese dialect)³.
   
   a) From tê: English tea, German Tee, Swedish te, French thé, Malay teh...
   b) From chá: Slovenian čaj, Russian chai, Greek tsái, Thai tsaa, Kor/Jap cha...
   The j at the end of čaj probably comes from 茶葉 (chá yè) meaning "tea leaves."[3]
   
   
3. 道: dào has many meanings like "direction; way; road; path; principle; truth; morality; reason; skill; method."⁴ It's also commonly known as the root word of Daoism (or Taoism), the well known East Asian philosophy and religion. [4]

Exuisite Taiwanese tea goes well together with some tea pastry.

So 工夫茶道 or kung fu cha dao would be literally translated as "skilled tea method", but to rephrase it, "the way of making tea with great skill" would be more apporpriate. The Taiwanese call this ceremony also 老人茶 lao ren cha and use some unique wooden tools and the way the tea is prepared is slightly different, but I won't go into that here. I will show you how the tea was made in a traditional tea house in Jiufen. The skilled person, who made the tea below was my lovely girlfriend (and I assisted her a little). Please take note, that we're not very experienced in making the tea the right traditional way. The waitress gave us a brief demonstration and later we tried to follow her steps. We may not did it exactly as she, but the tea was still very tasty.

Here's how it's done (or how we've done it):

Step 1: Warming the pot and heating the cups (溫壺燙杯)

Basically you just pour the water over the clay pot that contains the tea leaves inside, that's all. You have to pour from a higher position when cleaning (but later, when you brew the tea, you have to pour from a lower position). The water runs off into the big water catching tray below, which is called 茶盤 (chá pán) in Chinese. This is just for cleaning the clay pot.

1 A Taiwanese tea kettle for boiling water, placed on the floor under the table.
2 The tea digger, where the right amount of tea leaves is placed.
3 Putting the leaves in the clay tea pot named 茶壺 in Chinese.
4 Using the hot water to clean the clay pot by pouring the water over it.

Step 2: Appreciating the excellent tea (鑒賞佳茗)

The tea is now in the two snifter coups and you can take them and appreciate the tea's appearance and smell, but you don't drink the tea, you pour it away.

5 Pouring the water in the clay pot and then out
6 Poured the water in again and left it inside
7 How long you brew the tea depends on your preference, for me 30secs is enough
8 Pouring the tea in the snifter cups named 聞香杯 (wén xiāng bēi) in Chinese.

Step 3: Respectfully receive the fragrant tea (敬奉香茗)

Finally you can drink the tea. The proper way is to drink the tea in three sips. Later you don't need to repeat the initial 3 steps, you just pour water in the clay tea pot and then you pour the tea into the container with the fine sieve and then in your drinking cups. That's it. And you can repeat that for hours, if you want, because the tea is really excellent.

9 The tea is poured in the snifter cups again
10 Place the drinking cups over the snifter cups, this is named 龍鳳呈祥 in Chinese.
11 Holding both cups
12 and inverting them. This is called 鯉魚翻身 in Chinese.

From left to right: A snifter cup, a drinking cup and the Jin Shuang Oolong Tea.

The name Oolong tea (烏龍茶) in Chinese means Black dragon tea. The name is given, because the leaves are darker and the way of preparing is different.

Taiwan really has some of the best teas in the world. And the people are just crazy about drinking tea. You have all kinds of teas everywhere and people buy it and drink it on the way. But sometimes it's good to take a break and enjoy some high quality tea, because it's an unforgettable experience and a moment you won't forget so fast.

How do you like your tea?

[My TAIWAN page][Links: Gongfu Tea Ceremony][All pics by MKL, 2010]