Gongfu cha means, roughly, tea made with skill and time. It is not a ceremony performed for guests but a way of brewing: a small vessel, a lot of leaf, very short infusions. Pu-erh rewards it more than almost any other tea, because a single portion keeps changing for ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty steeps.
Here is how we brew pu-erh in the tea room, step by step, with the numbers we actually use.
What you need
- A small vessel of 100–150 ml: a gaiwan or a clay teapot.
- A fairness pitcher (gong dao bei), so every cup gets the same strength.
- Small cups of 30–50 ml.
- A kettle that can hold water close to boiling.
- Scales. Judging by eye comes later; at first, weigh.
The numbers
| Shu pu-erh | Sheng pu-erh | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaf per 100 ml | 6–7 g | 5–6 g |
| Water | 95–100 °C | 90–95 °C |
| Rinse | 1–2 × 5 s | 1 × 3–5 s |
| First infusions | 8–10 s | 5–8 s |
| Then add | 3–5 s each time | 3–5 s each time |
| Infusions | 10–15 | 12–20 |
Step by step
- Warm everything. Pour boiling water through the gaiwan, the pitcher and the cups, then discard it. A cold vessel steals ten degrees from the first infusion.
- Add the leaf. Break pieces off the cake gently, along the layers, with a pu-erh knife: you want flakes, not dust.1
- Rinse. Cover the leaf with hot water and pour it off at once. This wakes the compressed leaf and washes away the dust of storage. Aged teas can take two rinses.
- Brew short. Pour the water along the wall, not straight onto the leaf, cover and decant into the pitcher after 8–10 seconds. Pour off every drop: leaf left sitting in water keeps brewing.
- Lengthen gradually. Add a few seconds with every infusion. When the tea begins to fade, jump to 30 seconds, then a minute, then several.
Taste every infusion as a separate tea. The third is rarely the same as the first, and the tenth can still surprise you.
From our tea room notebook
Reading the cup
Shu pu-erh should be dark and clear — the colour of strong coffee held up to the light — with a smooth, sweet, woody taste. Cloudiness or a sour, pond-like smell usually means a poorly fermented tea rather than a brewing mistake.
Young sheng is golden and lively, often bitter for a moment before a sweetness rises at the back of the throat. The Chinese call it hui gan, “returning sweetness”. If the bitterness lingers, shorten the infusions or lower the temperature by five degrees.
If it is too strong
Pour faster, use a gram less leaf or cooler water. Don’t leave long pauses between infusions: wet leaf keeps extracting.
If it is too weak
Add leaf, not time. Long infusions pull out flat, woody notes; more leaf with short infusions gives density without harshness.
Small vessel, a lot of leaf, short infusions. Everything else is detail.
Questions we hear often
Can I brew pu-erh in a mug?
Yes: 3–4 g per 300 ml, water just off the boil, 2–3 minutes, then take the leaf out. You lose the changing story of gongfu, but a good shu still tastes good.
Do I always need to rinse?
For pressed pu-erh, yes. For loose young sheng the rinse is optional, but it helps the leaf open evenly.
How long can I keep brewing the same leaf?
Within one day. If you stop halfway, leave the lid off so the leaf dries a little, and carry on a few hours later.
Begin with an approachable shu such as Dark Velvet 2021. Once the method feels natural, try an aged sheng: the difference between infusions becomes a story of its own.
Notes
- Dust and broken leaf release tannins very quickly and make the infusion bitter. If a cake is pressed very tightly, steam one edge for a minute to loosen it. ↩︎
