Gongfu tea

Gongfu tea study in a tea class setting
When I was still running retail outlets, tea classes were conducted for users to learn about the nature of tea through infusion studies. The gongfu style of infusion is most popular because the relationship one can develop through it with a tea can be very intimate.

Gongfu tea, originally gongfu cha ( Chinese: 功夫茶 ), used to refer to a way of tea preparation technique popular in Minnan-Chaozhou area in southern China between 19th to 20th century. This technique has now been popularly simplified and much mis-represented by the form of using a gaiwan or a small teapot to prepare tea quickly with a lot of tealeaves and short infusion time. While the utensils are more or less the same, the understanding of the process and the nature of the leaves are often lacking. The strength of the infusion is often miserably low, an opposite thesis of the original idea of gongfu cha.

Gongfu tea is properly a way of preparing tea and was not initially intended as a ceremony, performance or zen medium. It is later when people use that form to their own agenda that the innocence of tea preparation has been masked with appearances unrelated to the nature of tea.

Gongfu tea the infusion method is not to be confused with gongfu hongcha, a form of black tea. The later was previously translated as congou by tea traders.

The spelling gongfu is not only a proper romanization in the pinyin system, but also in the jyutpin system for Cantonese.

The term has been used or discussed in these articles: