Hey teaheads.
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In THIS video: Brewing with the Gong Fu Guru.
In this video I'm going to be giving you the basic, step-by-step on how to use the Gong
Fu Guru to brew Gong Fu style.
This video is going to go under the "tea wares" and the "Basic Tea Education" playlists.
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If you've been given the Gong Fu Guru as a gift, then I congratulate you on your friends.
If you've purchased one for yourself, then I congratulate you on your taste.
Today, all I am going to be doing is giving you the basic on how to use the Gong Fu Guru
so that you can immediately start brewing Gong Fu style, and start to produce the most
delicious brews that you've ever tasted.
Okay.
I have in front of me the "wet" tray area of the Gong Fu Guru.
The dry storage area is kept away.
If you haven't watched our previous video on unboxing the Gong Fu Guru then I really
suggest that you do that, and I'll put a link in the description below.
So the dry storage area is always kept away from the wet storage area.
We’ve taken this top tray off, and we're bringing it down to our dining room table
- or wherever you're going to be serving your tea.
We're ready to brew, and we're not going to get the dry storage area wet at all.
What I have in front of me is the tray.
I've got the stainless water catcher.
I've got the stainless steel strainer in its place.
I’ve this here which I just fold easily into thirds.
So, very simply, I just fold it into thirds, like this.
Then I place this right next to me here, this way I have a nice absorbent for when I want
to wipe my cups, or anything.
The text thing you need to decide is which teapot you're going to using.
The glass teapot is universal, you can use it for any tea type, but specifically it's
very good for green teas, because it is made of glass, and therefore it will lose heat
quicker than the clay pot.
But you can brew any tea.
Today we're going to be brewing a roasted Oolong here, so I'm going to show you how
to make sure you maintain the temperature if you decide to use the glass teapot.
You can, of course, select the lovely, proper Zer Sha YI Xing Clay pot.
A lovely clay pot.
The choice is yours.
You can restrict the use of this pot to only one tea type, or you can use it across all
tea types, but I would recommend that the most you do is restrict it to medium to heavily
oxidized teas, and medium to heavily roasted teas.
But that's completely your call.
I will put a video link in the description below that describes a lot more about the
joys of this Yi Xing clay pot, and that decision-making process.
Okay.
Today I'm going to brewing a dark roasted Oolong tea.
That would be great for this pot, but I want to show you how to do it with the glass pot.
So here we go.
We have got everything set up.
We've got our glass pet our glass pot, our Gong Dao Bei, and the amount of cups that
you have guests.
Obviously, it's just me today, so it's just going to be solo, but we have four cups in
the Gong Fu Guru, so you can serve up to four people, of course, you can find more small
cups somewhere, and you can serve more people.
All right.
What do we do first?
The first thing we want to do is make sure that the teaware is heated up properly.
The reason for that is maintaining temperature when brewing is very important to making sure
that you extract the flavour properly.
These glass pots - because they’re made out of glass, and not made out of clay - lose
heat a little bit quicker, and therefore it's important that we always are conscious of
keeping the temperature constant and high in the pot.
So I'm just going to put some boiling water, 99 degrees - or about 210 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's very, very hot, and I'm just making sure that that now warms up nicely.
So just leaving that for a few seconds to warm up is really, really important.
The joy of the water catcher is you're not going to make any mess, can pour away into
here.
You only start to worry about this getting full when you start to see the water level
rise above the bottom of this filter.
So when you start to see that the water level is rising above that point, take the stainless
steel water catcher out, go to the sink and pour it away, come back and continue brewing.
That way there’s no risk of any spills.
Okay.
Now this is at temperature.
I'm now going to pour this into my teaware just so that this is nice and warm.
Now, immediately - while this is warm - I'm going to be taking my tea.
This is a Jin Xuan Oolong which has been heavily roasted.
It's called "Midnight Sun".
Again, I'll put a link in the description below, but it's a lovely, roasted Jin Xuan
Oolong.
We're going to use the back of our tweezers just to make sure that we put every single
one of these leaves in.
The amount that I'm using here is 11 grams.
This teapot, total, full, is 200 ml, but we're going to be filling it up to the point here,
where the spout meets the body, and that's about 150 ml.
So I've 11 grams here.
In terms of the amount of tea you use, and the temperature of the water you use, please
download our brewing guide.
Again, I'll put a link in the description below so that you can download our brewing
guide, so I don't have to go through that now.
But 11 grams is what I am doing here, for this, because I'm going to be brewing about
150 -160 ml.
Okay.
We've got a hot pot.
We've got the leaf in there.
Now is a perfect opportunity to smell the leaf and immediately I'm getting a lot of
the aromatics, because it's warm pot, so a lot of the aromatics are coming through.
I'm getting that creamy Jin Xuan aroma, but with this roasted note, and a slight cherry,
fruit note, as well.
Okay.
Whilst this is still warm in goes some water.
You don't have to fill it up.
Just put it about half-way, and we're doing what we call "the rinse".
So I'm going to pour away this water here, pour away this water, take my strainer.
Always very important - whenever you're straining from here to here, put the strainer in, and
immediately pour off.
The purpose of the rinse - there are many purposes for the rinse - one of them is to
get rid of the little particles of tea that have broken up.
The other is to start to open up these balls so that they're ready for the first infusion
proper, because they're basically all tightly rolled up, so you need to hydrate them to
start them opening up.
There are other reasons for rinsing, and again, I have made videos about that.
You can hopefully find those.
Now is the perfect chance to smell the leaf as it has been hit with water.
A great time to smell, and so much more flavour and aromatics are coming out.
What I recommend you do is smell from the lid, because if you smell directly from there
is a lot of humidity.
If you want to get a stronger smell then leave this, let some of the excess steam come away,
now you can come in.
Ah!
Incredible.
We're not going to talk too much about the tea, but it is a lovely, roasted Jin Xuan
Oolong.
Okay.
Now we've got the tea rinse.
We're going to pour some into the cup.
That starts to warm up the cup again, and starts to release some of the fragrance.
Then we're going to pour some of this tea wash and offer it to our buffalo, which you
can see flushes a beautiful gold.
It's always nice to have a tea pet.
Okay.
Another thing you can do is check on the quality of your tea.
So if you shake the pot now, if the leaf if poorer quality tea, and has lot of broken
leaf, then you will start to notice that the lid starts to pick up a lot of that.
You can see here that there's hardly anything on here.
It's really, really clear, and really, really clean.
So we know this is a high-quality tea.
Just another trick, especially with ball-rolled Oolongs.
Now, with your tweezers, let's imagine you have four people here , so you have four of
these cups all with tea in them, you want to make sure you empty the tea.
Do not use the tweezers this way around, it will not work.
You use the tweezers this way - so curved side down - and when you put it into the cup
and squeeze the automatically turns.
Can you see that?
I didn't really move anything.
I'll show it to you again.
Just bring it down, and as you squeeze it turns automatically.
So that's the way to do it.
If you do it this way, I'll try, but I'm sure.
Right.
You can see, it's not that pleasant, and it will potentially fall.
So always it with the curved side down.
Okay.
We've rinsed the tea, we've given tea to our tea pet.
Now we are going to brew properly, so we hit it with the water again.
I'm going to bring the water up the point where the spout and the body meet.
Then I pour some more hot water over the top.
Again, the reason is to make sure that we keep the temperature as long as possible.
Now, my mental stopwatch has started.
We want to do about 15 to 20 seconds of here.
Make sure you take your strainer - always use your strainer to catch any of the little
stray particles, and things like that.
If you want, you can also pour water over the top to maintain the temperature a little
bit hotter, especially with Oolong teas.
Okay.
That's about the right amount of time.
We then gently pour this into the Gong Dao Bei - of the "fairness cup" - and the reason
why we use the fairness cup, for those that don't know, is because if I was going to pour
directly from this teapot into different cup, then the first person would get a weaker pour
than the last person.
The Gong Dao Bei - or "fairness cup" evens out the infusion so everybody tastes the same
thing.
Always - in between brews- take the lid off.
You want to make sure you take the lid off so that the leaf doesn't stew and steam, but
is allowed to cool down and evaporate.
Now is the time where we don't mind - in fact, we want the pot to cool down.
It's only when we're brewing that we want to maintain the temperature by pouring water
onto the top.
You can see that the tea strainer here, has picked up a little bit of the tea dust, and
little bits of particles.
As you continue to brew, and your session gets longer, then this will build up.
The easiest way to clear it away is turn it upside down over the hole in the stainless
steel water catcher, and just pour water over the mesh part, and that way it's now completely
clear, and all of the leaf particles are on the bottom.
So we have now brewed our tea.
We've got Gong Fu brewed tea here.
You serve it in the cups.
If you were serving it to guests you would take cup, you would normally wipe it onto
the towel before serving it.
But this is just for me, so now I'm going to enjoy my Gong Fu brewed Midnight Sun.
Creamy, milky, buttery, roasted.
The fruit is not emerging yet.
Instead I'm getting slight mineral dryness, but the overarching flavours are the thick,
milky body, and the roasted flavour.
Now that was the first infusion.
Usually, second, third infusions are stronger because the leaf has now had a chance to open
up.
But you can see how those 11 grams of leaf have turned into a lovely mass of Oolong tea
there.
We will continue to brew.
Again, in the brewing guides that you'll see in the link below you can look at the weights,
the temperatures, and how long you brew for.
But we will be just continuing to add about five seconds to every infusion, so the next
infusion will be between 20 and 25 seconds, and then then 25 and 30 seconds, 30 to 35
seconds, etc.
You can brew this many, many times.
Always remember to take the lid of in between, and leave it to cool down.
You can always be smelling.
It's a wonderful way.
Never forgot aroma when you are tasting tea.
Aroma is - I would say - at least 50% of the pleasure of drinking tea.
So you're tasting it, but always smell those leaves.
One of the great things about Gong Fu brewing is that it's always there in front of you,
and you've got a lot of leaf so that you can really, really pick out the nuances of the
flavour.
Gorgeous.
So that's it.
The basic instructional steps pf how to Gong Fu brew.
You can go as complex as you want.
There are many ceremonial aspects that you can incorporate.
But really, that's as simple as it is.
If you start to brew this way you can add on your skills as you start to brew more and
more tea.
A great way to brew tea, the easiest way, the Gong Fu way.
This is the Gong Fu Guru.
That's it teaheads.
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