Kung Fu tea ceremony promotes tranquility, harmony
by Jaye Beeler | Grand Rapids Press Food Editor
Wednesday November 26, 2008, 8:16 PM
Press Photo/Emily ZoladzCurtis Smith, Grand Valley State University professor of Chinese language and literature, demonstrates a traditional southern Chinese tea ceremony recently.
Curtis Smith, associate professor of Chinese language and literature at Grand Valley State University, cradles the unglazed clay teapot from the Yixing village in Jiangsu province near Shanghai -- a recent purchase from Taipai, Taiwan, this summer.
Smith neatly arranges the 8-ounce tea pot and another tea pot pitcher on a bamboo tea tray with three itty-bitty tea cups. He readies a kettle with nearly boiling water and sets up his tea paraphernalia -- a set of beautiful bamboo tea spoons, a tea scoop, long-handled tweezers, a tea strainer and a tea poke to clear leaves from the spout. He keeps a cloth nearby for spills.
"This is called Kung Fu tea. Kung Fu actually doesn't mean martial arts. It means 'hard work,' so Kung Fu tea is a more labor-intensive way to make tea," says Smith, who holds a doctorate from National Taiwan Normal University.
FOR EXAMPLE
Three kinds of Chinese tea are available at Asian markets and Chinatowns.
• Unfermented or green tea: Has green spiky leaves like an evergreen. When brewed, looks greenish in the cup. Has a purer, delicate aroma and is refreshingly stimulating.
• Fully fermented or black tea: Full-bodied, rich, reddish brew with warm, pungent qualities.
• Semi-fermented or wulong (oolong) tea: Has long, curly leaves rolled into tiny balls; varies in its green hues. When brewed, it unfolds to reveal two leaves and one shoot (bud). Its fragrance and flavor changes throughout the steeping process. Perfectly complements rich, flavorful food.
A Kung Fu ceremony promotes harmonious tea-making and tea-drinking.
"A Chinese tea ceremony is all about the experience of drinking good tea, so the flavor and the enjoyment of the tea is very important," Smith says.
Appreciate the aroma
Smith fills the clay teapot one-quarter full of wulong (oolong) tea, encouraging guests to smell the tea.
"The first step is to rinse the tea leaves, which also warms the pot and removes a good portion of the caffeine," Smith says.
Ten seconds later, Smith pours the tea over the clay tea pot pitcher and tea cups. With bamboo tweezers, he picks up the tea cups and pours those out over both tea pots.
Again Smith fills the tea pot with nearly boiling water until it overflows, letting it steep for one minute. He pours the wulong tea from the Ali Mountain in southern Taiwan into the tea pot pitcher, then into each guest's sniffer nestled into a tea cup.
"I'll show you how to drink it," he instructs. "Pick up the sniffer with your index finger and thumb on the upper rim, supporting the bottom with your ring finger. That way, you don't burn yourself. Dump the tea into the drinking cup and then smell the empty sniffer. As you smell it, the aroma will change as the cup cools. It will go from being a floral fragrance to spicy. As the fresh air clears the nose, the fragrance will go into a sweet fruity flavor."
When drinking the tea, it is customary to slurp it to draw in air, then move it around in your mouth.
"A high-quality wulong tea, particularly high-altitude variety, is good for up to 12 steeps, but the second brewing is the most delicious tea -- because it's smoother and more refined and fragrant."
While studying in Taipai for a time in 1985, Smith discovered the spiritual, stimulating qualities of Chinese tea, not the stale black tea variety he grew up on.
"I first tried green tea, and it was like nothing I had ever had before," Smith says. "I was hooked. I came to realize Chinese teas are like wines, with distinctive nuances."
Like a Bordeaux produced in France is quite different from varieties grown in California or New Zealand, Chinese teas offer various characteristics determined by the growing region, hand-harvesting and fermenting/roasting process.
First-hand experience
This summer, Smith, who led 18 GVSU students on a study abroad program to National Taiwan Normal University, introduced his group to Chinese tea.
"I had one student who wanted to have nothing to do with tea. Until our second day, when I took them to a tea house, and, from that moment on, he was crazy about tea," Smith says.
"Good tea is hand-harvested. ... Pick wulong tea when it has two leaves and a shoot (bud), and that has to be done in the morning, then it's put into the sun to let the moisture evaporate."
From there, the tea leaves are fermented before they are processed and rolled.
"China is divided into two major areas -- North and South, and (they) have different cultures, languages, diets and personalities," Smith says. "This tea ceremony is southern style. In the North, where it is colder and more nomadic cultures live, they tend not to sit around all this time, spending so much time drinking tea like this. So they prepare tea by putting tea leaves directly into a big glass and pouring water over them."
"Drinking Kung Fu tea is a leisure activity called 'old folks tea' because the whole process takes time."
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