When I was a child, I collected miniature tea sets. Now I collect real tea sets...which also happen to be miniature.
They say when the British were around from the mid-16th century right up through the Opium Wars, the Chinese kept the good tea for themselves and gave the bad tea away. I can see this happening. Political revenge, racism, and anything else you can think of aside, Chinese tea is rather exceptional, once one develops a discerning palate, and why waste it on amateurs?
In China, tea parties are not child's play. Tea is serious business, a nightly ritual of the utmost importance, with special tea sets and special tea tables in addition to the high-quality tea itself. Tea houses may be making a resurgence throughout China, and they are lovely, but my favorite place to drink tea is at Kitty's house.
The first time I went to Kitty's for tea, I thought it was going to be a one-time experience. It became somewhat of a ritual. We will drink tea until we float away. For my birthday my third year in China, she gave me an elegant tea cup painted with a lotus blossom and the Buddha's hand - my favorite, of course - and at her house I have my own cup (she looks upon my tea sets and tea table with a bit of disdain). For my fourth birthday in China, she actually gave me a gorgeous, heavy, dark wooden tea table bigger than my suitcase, with elaborate carvings and a delicate drain - not a small gesture, and I put forth enormous effort to mail that treasure home. At one point, we each bought 100 servings of 绿/生普洱 sheng pu-erh (green pu-erh) that comes in tightly-rolled, hand-made balls from a shop she liked online.
Pu-erh tea is often from Yunnan Province of southwestern China. It is fermented and aged for years, and usually found compressed into bricks and disks (other teas are typically bought loose-leaf). The range in available qualities is drastic. Pu-erh is quite popular all over China, but especially with the minority groups, for its ease of transport. The most common, 熟普洱 shu pu-erh, is dark in color, but green pu-erh has a lighter flavor. It is best drunk from a terracotta cup.
Kitty and her husband, Boston, are both Tea Masters. They have a little elevated room in their apartment, overlooking Sun Square, just to house their enormous tea table. (Note that the tea table is distinct from the dining table or the coffee table, on which their respective consumer products are not actually prepared.) The table itself is unlike anything I had seen before coming to China. It has its own water spicket, a pot to sterilize the tea cups and a pot to boil the water, and a little drain to dump all the excess water that I hadn't known would be part of making a civilized cup of tea. (Kitty's sister's is even more extravagant.) It was around this table, where we gathered for tea lessons on a regular but random schedule, that I learned that 红茶 hong cha, or red tea, does not actually refer to rooibos from South Africa, but to the common black tea that is usually the first to spring to mind when someone says "tea" in English:
Red tea is fully fermented, dark in color, strong in flavor, and high in caffeine. It's popular in southern China, Southeast Asia, and most of the rest of the world. If you recall my previous post on travel to Fujian, the tea plantations we visited there grew copious varieties of red tea.
The preparation of tea in China has a long ceremonial history. Even now, with much of that lost, the process is a bit of a show. Once the water has boiled, the hot liquid is poured over all the tools and utensils for making the tea. The loose tea leaves (or balls, or picked pieces of disc or brick if making pu-erh) are lifted by wooden tongs into a tiny porcelain container with a lid. Water is dumped on the tea, and immediately discarded onto the head of a tea pet (a tiny figure meant to bring good luck) in order to clean the leaves. Hot water should also be poured on all of the utensils to warm them. The container is refilled, and the lid is used to rid the steeping tea of any bubbles. Then, a tiny metal or glass filter is placed on top of a tiny porcelain pitcher, and the tea is poured through that to strain it. One-by-one, the pitcher fills the tiny porcelain tea cups of each guest, and the cups are served on tiny wooden saucers. The cup should be drained in three sips. Each time the cups are refilled, the polite guest will tap his or her fingers three times on the table, once a symbolic kow-tow to the emperor. Of course, water temperature, ratio of tea to water, time to steep, and even the material of the tools and cups will vary by type of tea. The above process is the most common, most commonly for a basic green tea（绿茶）.
Green tea is by far the most common in China, made from fresh, dried leaves, and left unfermented. It is best drunk from a glass cup. (I was able to visit a plantation outside Hangzhou, famous for its 龙井 Long Jing, or Dragon Well, variety, and learn all sorts of interesting details about tea, most of which I've now forgotten.)
You might have picked up on the fact that tea things tend to be tiny. Really, the average cup is about half the size of a golf ball. The cuteness is astounding...I love it...but one can't squeeze the cup in glee, because it's delicate and will shatter. At first, the tea things seem like toys. It's funny to watch a macho businessman drinking seriously out of a miniature cup balanced between two of his fingertips. Anyone who's truly thirsty would be tempted to order a larger size. But, tea is not exactly meant to be drunk...though people nowadays do say 喝茶 he cha, or "drink tea," the standard Chinese used to be 品茶 pin cha, or "taste tea." The focus was on the art of it all - the tea, the process, being a good host or guest. Now, though, only the bare bones of this survive, though types of tea have multiplied.
Scented tea is tea mixed with herbs or flowers, which give it a particular aroma. The most well-known in the west is probably 茉莉花 mo li hua, or jasmine tea, but in China, 菊花茶 ju hua cha, or gogi berry and chrysanthemum tea, is quite popular for soothing the throat and aiding in blood production - the often serve it at the end of a xi jiao.
I don't have a fancy tea table quite like Kitty's, though the one she gave me is close - however, I do have a growing assortment of tea cups, tea sets, and portable tea trays acquired at the slow train station. Grow I will, and someday I will be able to describe tea in poetic terms, like wine. Currently, my favorite is 乌龙茶 oolong cha, which is apparently good for my constitution, so I'm pleased to have an excuse to drink more of it.
Oolong tea appears like green tea but has less of a grassy taste, as it is partially fermented in the southeastern provinces of China. Compared to the other types of tea, however, it is relatively rare. 铁观音 tie guan yin is probably the easiest to find, but is reputed to appeal only to beginners.
Now, a good tea party will come with various snacks, almost like Chinese tapas. The standard accompaniments are sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, both of which require a certain level of skill to crack in one's front teeth - many Chinese people have a small, crescent-shaped indentation in one of their front teeth from cracking too many sunflower seeds this way. (Really!) Seasonal fruit is another option, fresh or dried - any mandarin oranges should be roughly the same size as the tea cup.
Tea at Kitty's is one of the things I'll miss most about China. Perhaps someday she'll open her own Kitty's Tea Kingdom.
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