To appreciate Chinese tea like a true connoisseur, you must learn to savor the process of brewing it properly.

In this hands-on workshop, we'll discuss the teaware involved in gongfu tea and how their designs have evolved over centuries to coax out the full flavor of leaf tea. As part of the demonstration, we'll sample and compare progressive infusions of oolong tea, black tea, green tea, and pu'er tea.

Afterwards, attendees will have a go at performing the tea ritual themselves—learning to handle the teaware gracefully and brewing tea for their fellow participants.

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Nowadays, many people think of tea as a base to be flavored. In other countries, the most common additions include milk and sugar, cooling mint or warming spices. And in Chinese cities—and Chinatowns around the world—there's no shortage of trendy tea shops adding their scoops of tapioca pearls, fruity jellies, and dollops of cheese foam.

From the traditional Chinese perspective, however, flavorings are only suitable for inferior grades of tea. The best tea leaves deserve to be brewed and served in a way that maximizes their essential flavors. The method known as gongfu cha ("brewing tea with skill") originated as a regional practice from Chaozhou but in recent decades has become standardized across China.

Although the gongfu tea approach can be conducted with the formality of a religious ritual or as a luxury showcase of priceless ceramics, it's also an everyday practice that works just as well if the teapots are scuffed and the teacups slightly chipped. What matters is to treat the tea as a connoisseur would: Extract all the flavor contained within those leaves, then savor it fully with intentionality and mindfulness.

This interplay between high and low culture is also evident in the folklore around tea-drinking. The language of gongfu cha features much poetic symbolism, reflecting the influence of the literati who elevated it into an artform. Intriguingly, however, the gongfu tea process also references iconic military heroes from the ancient past. These allusions serve as a reminder that tea was no less cherished in the Chinese underworld, specifically, the anti-Qing rebel organizations that would later evolve into both mutual aid associations and criminal triads. When members met up, the simple act of offering and accepting a cup of tea was often fraught with unspoken meanings. Both host and guest were expected to understand the code as it was conveyed via minute differences in the gongfu cha ritual. This is just one aspect of the fascinating folk culture of tea that we'll be covering.

About the convenor: Lilly Chow is the founding editor of The Cleaver Quarterly, a magazine that explores Chinese food all around the world. She is currently working on a book about Chinese food folklore.