How to brew gongfu style
More leaf, less water, shorter steeps, many infusions. The Chinese method that gets the most out of a tea — and is far more forgiving than it looks.
Gongfu brewing uses a high ratio of leaf to water — typically 5 g to 120–150 ml — and then compensates with very short infusion times, starting around 10–30 seconds. The point is not strength, it is resolution: each infusion shows a different facet of the same tea.
Warm the vessel first. Rinse the leaf with a fast pour of hot water and discard it — this wakes the tea and washes off dust. Then pour, and pour fast: an uneven pour means uneven extraction. Empty the vessel completely between infusions, or the leaf keeps steeping in the residue and turns bitter.
Add 5–15 seconds to each successive infusion. Good oolong and pu-erh will give eight to fifteen infusions; the last ones are often the sweetest. If a tea turns harsh, your water is too hot, your pour too slow, or your leaf too fine.
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