Do you want to like Dancong, but can't quite get it to taste right when you brew it? Well, we're here to help. These are the basic steps for Chaozhou style gongfu brewing, which is the ideal method, in our opinion.

First, you need to boil some water. We like to use as hot as possible water, or at least 95C. Once your water is boiled, you can warm up the teaware to get it up to temperature.

We'll then add some tea. A standard 1 gram of tea per 15ml of water should do the trick, although you're more than welcome to use more or less tea, if that works better for you.

The first round will be a rinse of the tea to open up the leaves. Pour the water in, and pour it out as fast as possible. Don't knock things over or burn yourself rushing, things, but also don't let the infusion sit for too long. We're just giving it a flash brew to help open up the leaves.

The first through 3rd infusion will be the same. Pour the water in quickly, and then pour it out. When we pour from the gaiwan (or teapot), however, we'll be pouring into 3 small cups in a circular motion, as opposed to a pitcher. This is part of what separates Chaozhou style gongfu brewing from "regular" gongfu brewing.

When you pour, try to keep it even from cup to cup from the start to the end of the pour. The tea will be weakest at the start, and strongest at the end of the pour, since the water has had more time to sit in the gaiwan. A good way to gauge the pour is if the colour of the soup in each cup is the same.

From the 4th infusion on, we can start adding a few seconds to the brewing time. About 5-10 seconds should be enough.

And that's it. Now all you have to do is enjoy your tea.

Ok, so we might have a tip or 2...

The first would be to make sure there is no excess water sitting in the gaiwan between brews. None. Zero. Nada. This will oversteep the leaves on the bottom and contribute to bitterness. Simply shake out those last drops after each pour.

The second is to use boiling or at least really damn hot water. This will draw the most flavour out. This is especially important for the later steeps as the tea starts to slow down.

Lastly, use good, or at least decent tea. It doesn't have to cost a fortune, but this is a type of tea where you tend to get what you pay for. Lower quality teas can be extremely cheap, but often are thin in flavour, bitter, or worse yet, flavoured.

And it doesn't even have to be Dancong from us, but if you're looking for quality Dancongs, then this would be the natural place to tell you to try ours. We've sampled hundreds of different ones over the years so that you don't have to waste your efforts to sort the gems from the garbage.

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