In our second edition of Qimen Taobao tasting, I drink a Qimen gong fu tea. Qimen gong fu refers to a qimen tea that has been broken up into little bits. This was an old way of doing it that has fallen out of favor due to the idea that broken tea means low quality. Most qimen teas are full leaf which provided a smoother flavor, but qimen gong fu can give you a depth that is not found in other qimens.

This sessions started out as a normal tasting but quickly become an expirement in brewing. Since I have recently been drinking a lot of oolong and big leaf reds, I have gotten use to using boiling water, and gotten lazy. Since this tea chopped up its much more sensitive to water tempeture. I found that the flavors really changed as I reduced the water and varied the steep time. Basically I just a lesson in gong fu cha 101.

The tea its self was pretty good. Soft body, some bitterness, some sweetness, with notes of apple cider and caramel. While it wasnt bad, there wasnt much that made it good. It didnt have the depth or fullness I like from qimen gong fu tea. Next week I will do a side by side tasting of two different qimen song luos, qimen teas rolled into the snail shape like the green tea bi luo chun. Tasting videos are a new thing for me and Im trying to find the best way to do them. In the future I will being bringing you other videos that provide you different content and usefulness. Subscribe to get all the Chinese tea videos.