Tagged: gongfu
The Tea Ceremony With No Director Was Invented in 1989
A gathering that reads as ancient has a named founder whose own memoir dates it to the day, and a tea rule that turns out to be pure brewing physics, not doctrine.
What Steeping Time Does to the Metals in Your Oolong
A 2025 study of 108 oolongs varied brewing time and temperature directly. Time drove leaching. Temperature did something stranger, and it was not uniform.
In Sensitive Tasters, Huigan Tracks Saliva Friction
In tribology tests, huigan, the returning sweetness after a good steep, tracks a friction coefficient measured on saliva mixed with tea compounds, at least for the tasters sensitive to it.
Not Every Rock Tea Survives to Its Seventh Steep
The Order's Rule says the seventh steep reveals a Wuyi rock tea's finest character. A 2020 chemistry study brewed real Dahongpao fourteen times to find out for which grade that is actually still true.
Light and Roasted Oolong Bring Different Chemistry to the Kettle
Brewing temperature moved caffeine significantly only in oolong in one 2025 study, and roasted and unroasted oolong draw on different aroma chemistry.
What Mineral-Heavy Water Does to Oolong: Less Catechin, a Cloudier Cup
A 2024 study brewed the same Tieguanyin in four different waters and measured what came out. Mineral content moved the chemistry, not just the story a taster tells about it.
Gongfu Cha Means Skill, Not Ceremony
The word means skill, not ritual. What Chaoshan does at the table, who styled it into a performance, and the two-thousand-seat show staged at Wuyi.
The Pot Is Not Neutral: What Six Teapot Materials Do to the Same Oolong
Researchers brewed one oolong in six vessels, zisha and zhuni clay, stainless steel, ceramic, glass, and plastic, then measured what actually left the leaf.
Oolong Brewing
The standing method for brewing oolong, gongfu and Western, with temperatures, gram ratios, steep times, and infusion counts, and how light floral and roasted leaf take different heat.
Oolong Tea
Oolong is partly oxidized Camellia sinensis, made to a chosen point between green and black: how it is made, the major style families, how it tastes across the spectrum, and why it is brewed gongfu.