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. If at any
point in time you enjoy this video then please
give the thumbs-up. The more thumbs in the
air, the more tea videos are going to come
your way. If you haven't subscribed to our
YouTube channel then go click that button.
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? 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. If you made it to the end of this
video then PLEASE give the thumbs-up. Check
out our YouTube playlists.
And let us know if there are any VIDEOS that
you would like us to make. If you're ever
in London then come visit us in Camden to
say "Hi!" and taste our wares. If you have
any questions or comments then please fire
them over. Other than that, I'm Don Mei from
Mei Leaf. Thank you for being a part of the
revelation of true tea. Stay away from the
tea bags, keep drinking the good stuff, and
spread the word, because NOBODY deserves BAD
tea. Bye
