Kungfu tea, which originated in the Ming Dynasty and flourished in the Qing Dynasty, has become a cultural phenomenon of tea drinking custom in Chaoshan area and an important part of Chaozhou food culture.
Kung fu tea, whether elegant or vulgar, is very common in the local area, and they all take tea as their friends. No matter in public places or residents' homes, no matter in roadside villages, factories and shops, people are eating and drinking everywhere. Tea is not only for quenching thirst, but also for connecting feelings, exchanging information, chatting for fun, or negotiating trade. Kung fu tea is rich in culture. Elegant people attach great importance to congou tea, taking tea boy (nicknamed "Lu Feng County Magistrate") as the waiter, carrying loads into the mountains, floating on the water, overlooking Qingxi, making tea, talking about mountains and rivers, and expressing feelings, which has a special taste. Kung fu tea is an indispensable elegance in the life of literati and poets, so it is mentioned in many poems.
trait
Kung fu tea is characterized by exquisite tea set and exquisite cooking, and expresses feelings with tea. According to Weng Huidong's Chaozhou Tea Classic, "the special feature of congou tea lies not in the essence of tea, but in well-equipped tea sets and utensils and leisurely cooking methods." Generally, congou tea uses semi-fermented oolong, exotic species and Tieguanyin instead of black tea and green tea, so it is not necessary to have superior tea. Tea leaves are far less delicate than tea sets. The tea set of congou is often "multiple pieces in one type", and a set of tea has a teapot. Tea tray, teacup, tea cushion, teapot, water bottle, dragon jar, water bowl, clay stove, sand pot, tea bucket, feather fan, etc. It's usually 12. If 12 pieces are all excellent, they are called "Twelve Treasures". If 8 pieces are fine, or 4 pieces are fine, they are called "eight treasures".
Tea sets pay attention to famous products and factories, with fine workmanship, compact structure and high quality, just like a set of handicrafts, which embodies the value orientation of high taste in Chaozhou tea culture. The teapot of Kung Fu tea mostly adopts vermilion pot made in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, which requires "small and shallow", "small teapot", "small teapot is fragrant, big teapot is easy to burn" and "considered separately, the smaller the better"; The teacup should also be small and shallow, just like half a table tennis ball, as white as jade. If the cup is small, it will drain; if the cup is shallow, there will be no water.
The kung fu of congou tea lies in the cooking method of tea. Although there are good tea and tea sets, they are not good at making them, and all the work is in vain. There are so-called "ten methods" in the cooking of Chaoshan congou, that is, live fire, shrimp water, tea picking, tea filling, hot cup, hot pot, high foam, covered foam, top spray and low sieve. Some people also summarized the specific procedure of cooking Kung Fu tea as: "High rushing and low sprinkling, covering eyebrows, Guan Gong patrolling the city, and Han Xin ordering troops." Or "eight steps".
Cooker-the preparation before making tea, from making a fire to boiling water and ironing tea sets;
Collect tea-divide the tea leaves into different sizes and put them in the teapot, with the thick ones at the bottom, the medium ones in the middle and the thin ones at the top. Don't be too full of tea, only 70% to 80%.
Waiting for tea-pay attention to boiling water, take "crab eye water" as the degree, as Su Dongpo said, "the crab eye has passed the fish eye", and boiling water for the first time is the best;
Punching point-pay attention to the "high impact" and boiling water rushing out of the teapot, and avoid rushing straight to the center of the teapot to prevent "breaking through the tea gall", and the tea leaves are scattered and the tea foam overflows, which is harmful to the tea leaves;
Scraping foam-the white tea foam that overflows when making tea is scraped off with the teapot cover first, and then covered with the teapot cover;
Pour the pot-after the teapot is covered, pour the pot cover with boiling water, which can not only wash away the overflowing tea foam, but also heat it outside the pot;
Hot cup-before screening tea leaves, you can sterilize the hot cup first, and then heat the cup, so that the tea leaves are not easy to get cold and can also make the tea leaves fragrant;
Sieving tea-pay attention to "low sieving", which is a unique method of sieving tea in kungfu tea. Put the teapot mouth close to the neatly arranged cups, and then keep screening like "Guan Gong touring the city", and sprinkle the tea evenly in each cup. You can't fill a cup at a time to show "equal treatment", but a pot of tea must be screened repeatedly until it is used up, that is, the so-called "Han Xin points soldiers" the more the better.
Kung fu tea is different from ordinary tea drinking. The first difference between the two is that he gulps down large cups and tastes small ones. The meaning of tea tasting is not so much to quench one's thirst as to taste the fragrance of tea and tell one's feelings with tea. Secondly, kungfu tea pays special attention to the etiquette of eating tea. After the tea is finished, the host and guests are always humble, and then the elders and guests are invited to taste it first, and the cups are connected to the lips, and the tea faces the nose, smelling the tea, and drinking it all at once. The etiquette of congou is the traditional "tea ceremony" in China.