Chinese Tea Traditions: All You Need to Know

Chinese Tea Traditions: All You Need to Know -

Chinese Tea Traditions: All You Need to Know

Why do Chinese drink tea after a meal

Hot tea amazingly works in washing your food, keeping your throat clear. This builds up mucus and helps break down food better. As a result, you can expect your food to be fast and smooth.

How to use the traditional Chinese tea set

1.    Prepare the Chinese Tea Set

To make a set of Chinese tea, heat water in a kettle. Then place the teapots, sniffer teacups, and regular teacups in the bowl and pour hot water over them to warm the tea set. Next, remove the teapot and cups from the bowl. Tongs can be used to handle cups if they are hot to handle with your hands.

2.    Appreciating the Tea

At a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, participants surround the tea (traditionally oolong) to check and appreciate its appearance, aroma, and quality.

3.    Start the Process

To start making Chinese tea, use the tea leaf holder to remove the loose tea leaves from the tea can.

4.    Tea Brewing

Using a tea leaf holder, add the tea leaves to the tea. The amount of tea and water will vary depending on the type of tea, its quality, and the amount of tea, but generally, one teaspoon of tea leaves will do for every six ounces of water.

5.    Proper Brewing Temperatures

When making Chinese tea, it is essential to heat the water to the right temperature, and the temperature varies according to the type of tea. For every kind of tea, heat your water at the following temperatures:

White and green: 172–185 degrees Fahrenheit

Black: 210 degrees Fahrenheit

Oolong: ​185–212 degrees Fahrenheit

Pu-erh: 212 degrees Fahrenheit

The type of water you use is also essential. Avoid soft or hard water and make your tea with cold, spring water, or bottled water instead. Next, place the tea in the bowl, lift the kettle to shoulder length, and pour the hot water into the teapot until it flows.  After pouring the water, remove any excess bubbles or tea leaves and place the lid on the teapot. Pour more hot water over the tea water to ensure the temperature inside and outside the tea is the same.

6.    Tea Fragrance

Put the yellow tea in a teapot. Using a teapot, fill the tea snuffers with tea. To make the process easier or for those who do not have sniffer cups in their tea sets, you can regularly drink tea directly from the tea tap, skip the use of teapots and sniffer cups.

7.    Don't Drink Yet

After filling the sniffer cup with tea, place the teapots on top of the narrow teapots. It is a solid process that brings happiness and joy to the guests. Using one or two hands, hold both cups and quickly turn so that the sniffer is now turned into a drinking cup. Slowly remove the sniffer cup to release the tea gradually.

8.    Pour to Brew Again

Place the same tea leaves, place the kettle on top of the teapot; pour hot water into the tea. Water should be poured on top of the tea water so that the taste of the tea leaves does not go away quickly. Put the lid on the teapot.

9.    Proper Brewing Times

Steep the tea. The time length can be determined by the size and quality of the tea leaves. Generally, whole leaf tea is longer, and high-quality tea has a shorter brewing time. Green tea: 30 seconds to three minutes, black tea: three to five minutes, oolong tea: 30 seconds to 10 minutes

10. Last Steps

Pour all the tea into the teapot, and then pour the tea into the tea snuffers. Next, transfer the tea from the sniffers to the teacups.

11. Drink Your Chinese Tea

It's time to drink tea. Good manners dictate that tea drinkers cherish the cup with both hands and enjoy the aroma of the tea before taking a sip. The cup should be drunk in three sips of different sizes. The first sip should be short. The second sip is bigger. The third is to enjoy the latter and empty the cup.

Is green tea Chinese or Japanese

Both Japan and China are producing green tea.

How do the Chinese drink tea

A tea party itself is usually set up like a performance. Each type of tea has different methods of brewing. Some teas are brewed in a pot over a fire, while others drink it in a glass.

Can Chinese tea help lose weight

  1. Boosts metabolism:

Having green tea along with meals, consuming green tea is first thing in the morning or before you retire for the night can boost your metabolism as nothing else can.

  1. Detoxifies your system:

Full of antioxidants and flavonoids, green tea helps to flush out toxins from your system. It helps by clearing your throat and wash away any grease and mucus present there.

  1. Reduces cholesterol levels:

Research shows that green and black tea has many health benefits that can help by reducing cholesterol. As a result, it controls your body weight and reduces weight and protects against chronic conditions such as heart disease and obesity.

How to use a Chinese tea set

Gongfu Ceremonial Tea Set

Without a good tea set, tea cannot be enjoyed fully, and when drinking tea in a gongfu style, this is especially important or part of a Chinese gongfu tea ceremony. Part of the gongfu tea ceremony is all about the aesthetic and the tea exhibition. You can fully experience your tea in every way, using the gongfu tea set. Let’s get to know about the gongfu tea set and its tools.

Tea Tray

Usually, tea trays are beautiful, showing the tea set beauty and pleasantly holding the tools. Tea trays are shallow and can come in a variety of sizes and shapes. The tea tray function is to hold your teapots and cups and be filled with any flow of water released during the brewing process. Few more common shapes of tea trays are round, square, and fan-shaped.

Tea Pot

Teapots are used for making tea and pouring tea, and you can use a teapot or a traditional giwan to make your tea. Many teapots are available, including porcelain, glass teapots, and tea lovers enjoy more traditional Yixing clay teapots or sand-fired teapots.

Gaiwan

To brew your tea leaves, Gaiwan is traditionally used. People use gaiwan to smell the brewing tea aroma and to see the unfurling leaves of tea. Gaiwan can come in many styles and colors. The Giwan is also known as the Sancai Bowl, which translates gently into the synchronicity of man, earth, and sky because the cover of the Giwan represents the sky. The bowl itself represents humanity's saucer below presents as the earth.

Filter Shelf and Filter

After brewing to filter the tea leaves, the tea filter is used to put the tea in fair cups and pinming cups that do not have tea leaves. When not in use, tea filters are traditionally stored on a filter shelf.

Tea Pitcher

A teapot, also called a fair cup, is used to hold liquor of brewed tea. Once your tea leaves are properly prepared, the tea is poured into a fair cup like a small pitcher. Before serving the tea to your guests in your pinning cup, the fair cup is used to hold the tea and make it into the same density and flavor. That’s why it is called a fair cup.

Pinming Tea Cup

Pinming teacups are like you pour brewed tea from your fair cup to get brewed tea from. Western equivalent teacups, although the pinming cups are tiny, shallow, and thin. Gongfu style tea is to fully enjoy every aspect of brewing tea.

Fragrance Smell Cup

Aroma teacup is used to smell tea fragrance, mainly for oolong tea. The aroma cup appearance is taller than the tasting cup. Generally, an aroma cup should be matched with the same material and color of the tasting cup. The purpose of the fragrance cup is to capture the aroma and essence of tea, and it is matched with the pinming cup. Into the aroma, the cup pours the liquid. On the aroma, the cup places the tasting cup upside down.

Put the cups together and reverse them quickly, and place the aroma cup upside down on the tasting cup. Lift the aroma cup straight up, and reverse it over again when the tea liquid is drained. Hold the aroma cup with both hands, smell the fragrance close to your nose. Additionally, you can gently roll the cup between your hands to smell the tea.

Tea Holder

Tea holder is also called enjoy tea holder. The purpose of the tea holder is to keep the dried tea leaves to be brewed after removing them from the canister where they have been stored. Tea holders can be made from many materials, e.g., bamboo and wood, but simple white porcelain is the most common type.

Tea Scoop

It is used to take dry tea from tea bags and put it into the teapot.

Digger Spoon

It is used to transfer tea leaves from the tea  holder to the teapot.

Tea Funnel

A tea funnel is used to direct the flow of tea into the teapot and prevent the tea from overflowing.

Tea Tweezer

A tool to protect your fingers from the heat when carrying the teacup or to remove the tea leaves from the teapot.

Tea Pin

It is used to clean small tea leaves that block filter holes in teapots, so that water can easily reach the spout.

Tea Vase

It is used to hold utensils like a teapot, a tea funnel, a tea pin, a teaspoon, and a scoop.

Tea Towel

It is a small but essential part of the tea ceremony as it cleans any water and tea stains and is made of cotton or linen cloth. A tea towel is often matched to a tea set, but you can also use your cloth like a tea towel.

Is bubble tea Japanese or Chinese

Bubble Tea is a tea-based beverage that was introduced in the early 1980s in Taiwan. It usually consists of tea with chewy tapioca balls but can also be made with other toppings.

What is a Chinese tea ceremony

Chinese tea is served on the wedding day, and the bride and groom serve tea to their parents, in-laws, and other family members. It is a symbol of two families union; this is a significant part of the day, usually in the couple's respective family homes.

What is Chinese dragon tea

Dragon Well Green tea, known by its Chinese name, Longjing tea, is a traditional pan made of green tea with minimal oxidation and is famous tea for its fragrance aroma and flavor.

What is the best Chinese green tea

Wild Mountain Dragon Well, Canton Tea Co.

What is Chinese red tea

In China, these black teas are red tea (hong cha) because of the brew red color. Black Chinese teas are known as post-fermented teas, and Pu-erh tea is the most popular.

What is a Chinese tea egg

The tea egg is a common Chinese food retailer, usually sold as a snack, in which the boiled egg is slightly cracked and then boiled in tea, sauce, or spices. It is also known as a marble egg because cracks in the eggshell form dark lines with marble-like patterns.

Is there caffeine in Chinese Tea

Chinese green tea contains 30-35 mg of caffeine per ounce cup