In Guangdong, Fujian and Taiwan, people are zealous to drink and taste Oolong tea with little cups. Especially in southern Fujian and in Chaoshan of Guangdong. people are very attentive to the manners and methods of making and drinking Oolong tea and they usually take a long time to making tea.That makes the drinking of Oolong tea has another name: Drinking time -consuming tea.
Tasting Oolong tea should have following conditions first, because only with them, one can feel the interests and pleasure of drinking tea and make drinking tea become an artistic enjoyment.
Firstly, one should choose a kind of middle-class or slap-up tea according to one's own taste,such as Wuyi Narcissus tea, Tikuanyin tea, Golden Laurel tea, Fenghuang Dancong tea and Dongding Oolong tea.
Secondly,one should prepare a set of appropriative tea sets. The tea-specializing people of Chaoshan have more than 10 kinds of tea-making articles and tea sets, from stove, charcoal, fan to tea-washing device, teapot, teacup, washing jar, and so on. Even the ordinary family usually has a set of appropriative tea sets for making and drinking tea. Sets for drinking tea, known as "four treasures for drinking tea", include Chaoshan blast furnace, Yushu mill, Mengchen jar and Ruoshen cup. Chaoshan blast furnace is a shrunken ceramic charcoal-furnace and its only use is to heat up. Yushu mill is a shrunken ceramic kettle, which has high handle and long water-out pipe, People put it on the blast furnace to boil water. Mengchen jar is a purple-sand pot, which is smaller than ordinary teapot and its only use is to making tea. Ruoshen cup is a small cup whose size is almost as half of ping-pong. People usually prepare 3, 4 or 5 Ruoshen cups for drinking tea.
Before drinking tea, one should prepare tea sets. That means he should wash teapot, tea tray and teacup with boiled water in order to make tea sets clear and warm. This stage is called preparing sets.
The second stage is separation. In this stage, one should put Oolong tea on white paper and shake the paper slightly. This will divide tea into tow parts, thick and thin and one should separate them with bamboo spoon.
The third stage is laying tea. The usual method of laying tea is to put thin tea on the bottom of teapot, and then lay thick tea on it. This will prevent thin tea plugging up inner mouth of teapot pipe and make tea poured out without any block.
The forth stage is pouring boiled water. In this stage, one should make boiled water flow along the side of teapot and slowly poured into it. That will make tea roll in circle in teapot.
The fifth stage is scraping foam. One should slowly pour boiled water into teapot until the water overflow teapot. At this time, one should take teapot lid and slightly scrape the foam floating on the surface of tea. There are few people inclining to immediately pour out the water in teapot just after Pouring in. It is called washing tea, that means wiping out dust on tea and make its original flavor kept. In fact, the purposes of scraping foam and washing tea are similar: making tea clear.
The sixth stage is washing teapot. After scraping foam, one should immediately cover teapot lid and pour boiled water on it. It is called "Launch attack both inside and outside". At the same time, one should rinse teacups with boiled water in order to make them clear.
The seventh stage is pouring tea, After the sixth stage, one should make teapot keep quiet for two or three minutes to allow the flavor of tea seep into water. Then one should press slightly the knob of teapot cover just with his forefinger, and seize tightly the handle of teapot just with his thumb and middle finger. Besides this, one should pay attention to following key points of pouring tea: don' t hold teapot high; pouring tea into cups in turn and make sure that each cup is half filled in the first instance; Continue pour tea into cups in turn until each cup is four- fifth filled. People call it as "Inspection by Guanyu". If tea in teapot is totally poured out after this stage, people will feel excellent .There are some tea- specialized people like pour residual thick tea into cups and call it as "Designationby Hanxin" .
The eighth stage is to taste tea. In this stage, one should seize teacup with his forefinger and thumb and sustain the bottom of teacup with his middle finger. The next steps are observing tea color, Celling tea flavor and sipping tea. In this way, the flavor of tea will spread inside one's mouth and its lingering charm will make drinker experience the splendid feeling of tasting Oolong tea.
Oolong tea is durable to steep. Besides it, teapot for making Oolong tea is usually small and tea is usually much, so when making Oolong tea, people often add water into teapot for 3 to 4 times. If tea is slap-up, the times of adding water maybe 6 to 7.