Chinese Tea Ceremony
by Paulette Licitra(page 2)
Before him, in a shallow lacquer box were four tiny cups shaped like tall spools of thread -- these were the "sniffing" cups. Each tea drinker was handed a smaller, squat cup -- a drinking cup, just large enough to hold about two small swallows of tea. This particular use of tiny cups is practiced in Fujin and Chiujao in southern coastal China above Canton. In Shanghai and Beijing they use large cups. The two cup method became popular in Taiwan where the tea ceremony has been elevated to a gourmet level.
Beside Jan on a portable gas burner, spring water bubbled in a glass pot. He selected, from a collection of mysterious bags, our first tea. "This is a green tea," said Jan. "An Oolong. Unlike Japanese tea which is powdered, not strained, and drunk with the tea, the leaves of this tea are not broken, but dried into little buds."
Jan's teacher, Mr. Lo, makes trips to China to buy special teas. The teas used in tea ceremonies are particularly refined. They aren't the teas you would have with food.
Mr. Lo calls restaurant teas "floor sweepings."
There are green teas which are lightly fermented, and red teas that can be moderately or heavily fermented. Most teas used in the tea ceremony are grown in the mountains of Taiwan at 4,000 feet. The teas we tasted range in price from $50 to $100 a pound. Jan says there are teas costing as much as $200 to $500 a pound.
Jan passed the tea leaves around for everyone to see and smell. I sniffed, not sure what I was supposed to gather from the scent. But as the ceremony progressed, we all saw that each step was meant to be a sensory exploration and appreciation; scent for the sake of scent. We then compared the scent of the
leaves to the scent and taste of the brewed tea.
Jan displayed one of his tiny teapots. "The teapot is made from red sand clay. In China you have to dig very deeply to extract this particular kind of clay. It is all hand built, not shaped on a wheel. Since it is not glazed, when a pot like this is new, it is considered raw. To seal the inside, you boil old tea leaves with water for three hours. It seals the inside of the pot. Oils from the tea leaves fill in the pores of the fired clay." The tea master's apprentice passed around the pot for us to examine: a lovely, squat, reddish brown pot. I marveled at its smoothness and symmetry. I could conceal it entirely by wrapping my two hands around it. The smooth surface felt strangely organic, like the smooth skin of a fruit, perhaps a nectarine.
