TEA BREWING….

WATER
When in comes to brewing tea water makes up to 99% of the tea that you drink. This makes water a key ingredient. Ideally using natural spring water is best but filtered or bottled water that is clear of hard minerals and chemicals is fine (ex calcium, chlorine). Remember that impurities from the water that you use will be carried over to the tea that you drink. 95-100 degrees is ideal for Pu erh tea.

FLAKING TEA LEAVES
Most Puerh teas come in the form of a compressed teacake. The tea leaves must be carefully flaked from the teacake for each brewing session. Below are 2 important points to keep in mind when breaking up your teacake:

• Avoid overly large and thick pieces of tea
• Try to keep the leaves whole and intact
Finely broken pieces of tea can bring about bitterness and harsh flavors. Additionally such leaves will quickly lose their strength and fade quickly, consequently preventing a natural release of flavors and hampering the tea's potential.

STEEPING TIME
A tea leaf has many layers. Each layer has a character of its own reflected through its taste and fragrance. For some teas like Pu-erh tea, each layer can have distinctively different characteristics. Hence we use short multiple steeps for brewing tea in order to extract individual layers and experience their respective characteristics.
For example our YIWU WILD ARBOUR (Red Label) has the following steeping times - 15s/15s/20s/25s/30s/30s/35s/40s/50s. The first steep is for 15 seconds followed by a few minutes rest as the tea is enjoyed. The second steep again is for 15s, the third steep 20s and so on. Premium Pu-erh tea have enduring leaves that are packed with flavor making it ideal for multiple steeping. 8 grams of leaves can go a long way.

1. Pre-heat the ‘Gaiwan’ and cups with hot water (Pour hot water and rinse).
2. Flake 8 grams of Pu erh tea into the ‘Gaiwan.’
3. Flush the tea (rinse about 15 second and pour the rinse away ).
4. First steep ( Steep the tea fully and pour some water over the outside and let it overflow)
5. Pour the tea into the ‘Cha Hai’ after 15 seconds steep.
6. Ready to serve. Continue with second steep and so on….

· Do not cover the lid of the ‘Gaiwan’ when not steeping the tea, leave it open by putting the lid at the side of the ‘Gaiwan’.
· The steeping time and weight of tea leaves are just recommendations. One should do it according to their own preferences.