Tea for Two. . . No, actually for eight

      Last Saturday there was a Chinese tea tasting event at a lovingly-restored heritage tea house downtown.  Naturally, we went!  The tea tasting host (at left) was not very happy about having a group of eight people around his table.  Evidently, four is best because the cups can be easily retrieved between pourings.  (Look at me, tossing around tea tasting jargon as if I know anything about it!)  
      Before I tell you what else I learned about Chinese tea,  let me quickly point out that I still know almost nothing about it.  Like wine and Japanese tea, you could study it all your life and still not know all there is to know.  But I did pick up some interesting information that I'd like to share. 
        One thing I learned is that Chinese tea, like wine, has vintages, good years and not-so-good years.  Again, like wine, you have to know what variety and year you want when you go to buy it--or listen to the expert in the tea shop who's selling it to you.  Evidently there are only two types of green tea that are common in China because it has a shelf life of only six months or so (compared to a few years, like other types of tea.)
         Second,  Chinese tea drinking/tasting seems to be much more sociable than the Japanese tea ceremony, which is just that--ceremonial, and very quiet!  In the Chinese system, you show your appreciation for having been poured a cup by tapping your first two fingers on the table in a V shape.  We were told that this comes from ancient times when one of the emperors went out among his people incognito, of course drinking tea and serving it.  His courtiers wanted to be humble in the presence of their emperor; they wanted to bow and thank him effusively for serving them tea (instead of the other way around).  But he knew if they did that, his identity would be revealed.  So, he taught them to tap on the table with their knuckles instead and that evolved into the silent gesture of appreciation that is now used -- this lightly tapping two fingers on the table.  Believe it?  It doesn't matter.  It's a grand story, whether it's actually true or not!

       The server, a former tour guide turned tea aficionado, told us about tea pots, too.  They're never washed (only rinsed out) because they might pick up the flavor of the dishwater and because they get "seasoned" as they're used.  The black pots take hotter water, which is appropriate for certain types of tea but not others.  And serious tea tasting pots aren't glazed or decorated with blue-and-white figures.  They come in earthy colors that derive from the kind of clay used to make them.  There's one little tiny type of teapot that's used to brew "rock tea," which is the "espresso of the tea world."  The cups for that tea are correspondingly small--just little, bitty things, almost like thimbles.
       We learned much, much more during our visit.  For example, the foods served with  Chinese tea shouldn't be spicy or sour because they would overpower the tea.  We saw that the tea is poured from the pot into a "fairness beaker" and then into the cups.  The middle container is called that because it equalizes the flavor so that everybody's tea is the same strength.  If the tea is poured directly from the pot into the cups, the early-poured ones would be too mild and the final ones would be too strong.  (The Japanese do the same thing by pouring a little tea at a time, into each cup, going around in a circle,hitting each cup 2-3 times to balance out the strength.)
      Well, this is just a drop (of tea) in the bucket--no, the pot--of what there is to learn about Chinese tea.  I know I'll never be an expert, but if I keep at it, there's a chance I'll develop at least an appreciation of what is a very depthy subject!