Tandem Gaiwan
A Liang was recently asked to organize a hike & tea lecture for a group of tea enthusiasts, and he asked me to help out by brewing tea for the guests. Of course, I’m always up for some brew, and love working the gaiwans for him, but there were around 40 guests, and it was quite a challenge to keep up with them .
In preparing for the event, we discussed using a large teapots, but my large pots aren’t really that good for making tea, and A Liang’s are too good for use outside, where there’s greater potential for damage. In the end, we decided to go with a ‘double gaiwan’ program. I don’t practice brewing with my left hand too much, so I borrowed A Liang’s large gaiwan (which matches the one he gave me after the Tea Expo last year), and I practiced with them at home for the two weeks leading up to our event.
We brewed Oriental Beauty (Dong Fan Mei Ren), and of course, Tie Kuan Yin. An advantage to serving these teas is that they have what my brother would call a ‘fast release time’, and so you can do many rounds quickly. The two we served are also very ‘patient’, which means they give more brews per pot than some teas, so I didn’t need to change leaves as often.
Even so, I was pretty much pouring nonstop for about 2 hours, and it seemed there were always people waiting for their next cup. I guess I should be happy the tea was good enough to keep them coming back!