Steps to Make Tea
1. Heat the pot: Heat the teapot with boiled water to eliminate peculiar smell. Heated pot can help to release the tea scent.
2. Place the tea: The mouth of the teapot is usually small, so one should first put the tea in a special half-ball vessel and hand it to guests for them to appraise the shape of the tea leaf. Then, put the tea into the pot with a teaspoon. The amount of the tea is about 1/3 of the teapot.
3. Warm the cup: Warm the cups with boiled water that heats the pot.
4. High pour: One needs to lift up the kettle high to make a good tea. The tealeaves turn over and scatter in the pot after water pouring in from a high level. This is known as high pour, a better way to get out the aroma of the tealeaves.
5. Low pour: After the tea is ready, one can pour it into a handless cup. This time, one should keep the pot's mouth as low as possible and close to the cup to minimize escaping of the aroma. This is known as low pour. Normally, pour the first-round brewing and the second-round brewing into one cup, one will have a better taste tea. Repeat this when one makes the third and fourth brewing, and the following rounds as well.
6. Distribute the tea: Tea is distributed into cups from the handless cup, with an amount of about 7/10 of the cup.
7. Offer the tea: Offer the tea to guests in teacups together with cup pad.
8. Smell the tea: Before tasting the tea, one should first look at its color and smell its aroma.
9. Taste the tea: The Chinese character 品 (taste) is three 口 (mouth) that are put together, which means one should taste one cup of tea in three sips. Before sipping and tasting the tea, one should smile at the tea brewer for one or two seconds to express appreciation.
