To brew Chinese tea gongfu style, use a small vessel - a gaiwan or teapot of 100 to 150 ml - fill it generously with leaf, pour water at the temperature that suits that leaf, and steep for seconds rather than minutes, emptying the vessel completely each time. Then re-steep the same leaves five, ten, sometimes fifteen times. That is the whole idea - more leaf, less water, short steeps, many of them.
Gongfu cha sounds intimidating and really is not. Strip away the theatre and it is a practical method for getting the most from good leaf. We have brewed this way at 9 Neil Road since 1989, and we tell every beginner: you cannot ruin a tea, only make a cup slightly too strong - then adjust the next one.
What gongfu cha means
Gongfu cha translates roughly as brewing tea with skill - the same gongfu as in kung fu. It means attention and practice, not ceremony. The style belongs to the Chaozhou and Fujian regions of southern China and travelled south with those communities, which is why it feels so at home in Singapore.
What you need
- A small brewing vessel. A gaiwan - a lidded bowl such as our White Porcelain Gaiwan Tea Cup and Saucer Set - is the most versatile choice, since glazed porcelain holds no flavour and suits every tea you own. A small teapot works just as well.
- A fair cup, also called a justice cup. Empty each infusion into it before serving and every guest gets the same strength, instead of the first cup being weak and the last one stewed. A Tea Chapter Justice Cup improves every brew you make.
- Small cups, 30 to 50 ml.
- A kettle and a scale. Variable temperature is a luxury - boiled water rested a minute or two is about right for oolong. Weigh your leaf for a month and your eye learns it.
Brewing parameters by tea type
Treat these as starting points, not rules. Leaf is given per 100 ml of vessel, so scale it: a 150 ml gaiwan needs half again as much.
| Tea type | Water temperature | Leaf per 100 ml | Rinse first? | First steep | Steeps to expect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green (Dragon Well, Bi Luo Chun) | 75-85°C | 3-4 g | No | 20-30 sec | 3-4 |
| White (Silver Needles, White Peony) | 85-90°C | 4-5 g | Optional, 3 sec | 30-45 sec | 4-6 |
| Rolled oolong (Tie Guan Yin, high mountain) | 95-100°C | 5-7 g | Yes, 5 sec | 25-35 sec | 6-8 |
| Roasted rock oolong (Scarlet Robe, Rou Gui) | 100°C | 5-7 g | Yes, 5 sec | 15-20 sec | 8-10 |
| Red / black (Keemun, Lapsang Souchong) | 90-95°C | 4-5 g | Optional, 3 sec | 10-20 sec | 4-6 |
| Raw pu'er | 90-100°C | 5-7 g | Yes, 5 sec | 10-15 sec | 8-12 |
| Ripe pu'er and dark tea (Liu Bao) | 100°C | 5-7 g | Yes, 1-2 times | 10-15 sec | 10-15 |
After the third infusion, add about five seconds to each steep. Delicate greens and young raw pu'er want the cooler end of their range; darker, more roasted teas the hotter end. A harsh cup usually means water too hot or a steep too long - rarely too much leaf. Judge by taste, not colour: a pale infusion of Dragon Well can be full of flavour, a dark one hollow.
The method, step by step
- Warm everything. Boiling water into the empty vessel, swirl, tip it through the fair cup and the drinking cups, then discard. Cold porcelain steals heat from your first infusion - the one steep you actually measured - and a warm vessel makes dry leaf release its scent.
- Add the leaf and smell it. Leaf into the warm empty vessel, lid back on, wait a few seconds, then lift and breathe in. That dry aroma tells you a great deal.
- Rinse, for most teas. Fill and pour straight out again - under five seconds.
- First infusion. Pour down the inside wall for delicate leaf, or straight onto compressed pu'er to help it break open. Lid on, and time it properly.
- Empty the vessel completely, every drop into the fair cup. Water left on the leaves keeps extracting and sours the next round.
- Pour, drink, repeat. Leave the lid ajar between infusions so the wet leaves are not stewing in their own heat - which matters in a Singapore kitchen.
- Stop when the tea stops, which is when a cup tastes thin and watery rather than merely light.
Rinsing: waking the leaves up
A rinse is a fast fill-and-discard, not a short steep. It warms and hydrates the leaf so the first infusion comes out even rather than half-extracted, and helps rolled or compressed leaf open - for aged teas such as our Imperial Pu'er it also rinses away the dust of storage. Skip it for green tea and delicate white buds, which give their best in the first thirty seconds. And a rinse does not decaffeinate tea: only a small fraction of the caffeine leaves in a few seconds.
Short steeps, and why the leaves keep giving
Different compounds leave the leaf at different speeds: the aromatic, sweet-tasting parts move fast, while the bitter and astringent ones build with time and heat. A four-minute mug drags all of it into one cup, which is why over-steeped tea tastes flat and drying. Short steeps take the fragrant fraction first and leave the rest behind - and because you are using two or three times as much leaf, the cup is concentrated rather than weak.
Whole leaf makes the repeats possible. Tea in a bag is broken into particles with an enormous surface area, so it surrenders everything at once. Whole leaves open gradually, each infusion reaching leaf the last one never touched. The tea changes as you go: early cups are the most aromatic, the third to sixth the thickest and sweetest, the later ones soft and mineral.
The two mistakes we see most often
- Not enough leaf, then a long steep to compensate - which buys bitterness instead of body.
- Boiling water on green tea, which scorches the leaf into a stewed, spinachy cup. Filtered water, freshly boiled and then rested, fixes most beginner cups.
Learn it in person at 9 Neil Road
Tea Chapter was founded on 1 October 1989 by thirteen tea enthusiasts, in a three-storey shophouse that was the first pre-war shophouse restored under Singapore's URA conservation project in 1988. Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1989, and the oolong she was served here was afterwards named Imperial Golden Cassia - still on our shelves, and still a very good place to begin with oolong.
Fifteen minutes with someone correcting your pour beats a month of reading. Our tea appreciation workshops run in English or Mandarin, privately for each booking, in the afternoons, minimum 2 and maximum 10 people - write to inquiry@teachapter.com. Or simply come and sit down: we open daily from 11.00am, closing at 9.00pm Sunday to Thursday and 10.30pm on Friday and Saturday.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a gaiwan to brew gongfu cha?
No. A small teapot works just as well. What matters is that the vessel is small, that you can empty it quickly and completely, and that it does not hold on to the flavour of the last tea brewed in it.
How much leaf should I use if I have no scale?
Rolled oolong should cover the base in a single layer, since it expands enormously; strip-shaped leaves such as rock oolong or red tea should fill the vessel loosely by a third; fluffy white tea can fill it halfway; a pu'er chunk should be the size of a large coin.
Should I rinse every tea?
No. Rinse compressed, aged, rolled and heavily roasted teas - pu'er, dark tea, rock oolong, Tie Guan Yin. Skip it for green tea and delicate white buds, where much of the character sits in the opening seconds.
How many times can I really re-steep the same leaves?
The figures in the table are deliberately conservative. A good rock oolong or ripe pu'er will often pass ten infusions if you keep lengthening the steep, while greens are usually finished after three or four.
Can I still brew good Chinese tea at the office?
Yes. Use roughly 3 g of leaf per 200 to 250 ml, keep the water off the boil for green and white teas, and lift the leaves out after two to three minutes - or brew in something like our Zen Style Ceramic Tea Infuser Cup, which lets you re-steep them twice more at your desk.