Welcome back! In this video we'll look at
our updated competition sets. A [tea] competition
set has a tea cup with a lid and it has a
bowl. In tea competitions in Taiwan, these
are very popular; they're used similar to
a coffee cupping set. Like a lot of the wine
competitions and coffee competitions in the
West, in Taiwan farmers will bring their teas
to a competition where the judges will brew
all the teas the same way; the tea leaves
are steeped for five or six minutes and then
decanted into a bowl. When judging, they would
take a spoon, scoop up some of the brewed
tea, and then taste it -- but of course the
spoon is usually a ceramic spoon as well.
But this set to me is very versatile, I like
using this set when I'm in a hurry or on a
daily basis, and even for my travels, because
it's so convenient to have it in a box like
this. Our box is pretty sturdy, so this set
will fit directly in here, and this is what
I would bring along on my travels, because
this is so versatile and so convenient. It's
similar to a gaiwan; you would brew in here,
and then decant. So let me demonstrate on
how I would use it at home. I would take some
of the tea leaves and put it in the dish,
and if you really want to check the quality
of the tea and be your own judge at home,
what you can do is take a small amount that
you plan to brew and then put it to your nose
to test for the aroma. If it's a natural tea,
it really shouldn't smell like much. The tea
leaves wouldn't release their aroma until
they hit heat or water. So what we're going
to do is add hot water into the cup -- this
will warm up this tea cup to prep it for brewing
the tea. Usually teaware is fairly cold, so
when you put hot water in this would get it
to the temperature you want. Then we'll pour
it into the bowl to warm up the bowl. Now
I can put the tea leaves in here, and when
the tea leaves are placed into the cup we
can test the aroma of the leaves now. I'll
take this hot water in the bowl, and return
it to the teacup. So if you're using hot water
that is slightly too hot to put to your mouth
to drink, this process of pouring the water
back and forth would really cool the water
down to a temperature where it's a lot more
palatable. So once the tea leaves have steeped
enough, then what you would want to do is
pick this up by aligning the lid hole with
the spout here, and we'll set it into the
cup. So it's a very quick process and you
have your tea cup. I would drink directly
from here and what's really nice is this is
the exact amount you would drink within two
or three minutes. If you want a bigger cup
of tea, you could always add hot water in
again so you don't waste your leaves. Usually
with premium teas we can repeat this process
a few times and that's what's so awesome and
convenient about the competition set. If you
want to see more of our different teaware,
please visit our website redblossomtea.com,
and of course follow us on our YouTube channel.
