Smaller is Better!

The smaller the teapot the greater the control.

Like any fresh, high quality food, tea needs to be properly prepared to get the best out of it. Would you boil asparagus for thirty minutes? Would you fry a fillet steak for an hour?

Fine tea is the same. A few expert tips can help you make the difference between ‘over-cooking’ your tea and making it perfectly. In addition, using the right tea ware almost ensures that you will make your tea well.

The ‘right tea ware’ always means using a small teapot and by small teapot we mean that it should hold the same amount of liquid as the capacity of the cup you pour your tea into. If you use a bigger pot, the tea leaves will stew – your first cup maybe too weak, the second too strong and the third so bitter that it will be undrinkable and what’s more your tea will be cold by the time you get round to drinking it.

So with a small teapot you will get perfect, full flavoured infusions without bitterness, and you will enjoy the ritual. In China a teapot any bigger than the size of a tangerine would be laughed at – and for good reason. So don’t be surprised that we sell teapots as small as 150, 200 and 250ml. Most of our larger teapots have a removable infuser which you should take out when your tea has steeped to the perfect strength.

When using high quality whole leaf tea, you should infuse the same leaf again and again. The number of infusions the leaf will give will vary from one tea to another. You will be able to infuse black tea two or three times but up to twenty times for some puerh teas. We recommend using 3-5g per pot and then follow the instructions shown in our Gong Fu tea-making guide.