Puer tea can be steeped in a number of ways, but ideally one should have the following equipment: a teapot or a porcelain steeping cup with a lid (盖碗/gaiwan), a fine tea strainer, a small glass jug to decant the steeped tea into and glass or ceramic cups.

If an Yixing teapot is used, one should dedicate a pot solely for raw (生/sheng) Puer teas and, ideally, maybe distinguish between softer and stronger teas, which would mean a minimum of two pots. Many people believe that the best clays for pots to brew sheng puer are 段泥/duan ni, 本山绿/ben shan lu, or 朱泥/zhu ni.

A gaiwan will give the most accurate brew and, if you are drinking tea that is new to you, or that you are unsure about, it is best to use a gaiwan. Yixing teapots tend to soften the flavours of tea; make it a little smoother and more rounded, but because they are porous, they also absorb flavours from the tea, which has a small impact on subsequent brews using different teas in the same pot. This is very important if there is a possibility that the tea you are trying has chemicals in it; this can have a distinct and long lasting effect on the pot and therefor subsequent steepings. It should be possible to steep a good Puer tea many times using either a teapot or gaiwan.

It is good to use a relatively large gaiwan – the smaller they are the more they tend to stifle the tea – 140 ml is a decent size even for one person. Gaiwan that are flatter in profile tend to stifle the fragrance more than taller designs, so buying one that is relatively tall is also worthwhile- the actual cup will still be somewhat wider than it is high. Look for a gaiwan that you can grasp comfortably between middle finger and thumb (with your first finger in, or lying across the top of the lid). The lid should not be very tight and should rock slightly in the cup.

There are different designs of saucer: some saucers are made with a rim within which the base of the gaiwan sits, others have a shallow depression. Ideally, find a set where the gaiwan can be placed easily on the saucer.

The thicker the walls of the cup, the more it will retain heat which may be important if brewing for longer periods, or drinking straight from the gaiwan. In any case, if the cup has a well flared rim and is not filled to the brim, it should not become too hot to work with.

If finding the time to brew ‘gong fu’ style seems unmanageable, a piao yi bei is worth trying. Designed to approximate gaiwan style brewing, a piao yi bei. sometimes referred to as a ‘gong fu cup’, is a glass jug with a (usually plastic) filter system that sits in the top and from which the tea is allowed to drain into the bottom of the jug by way of a simple ball valve. This method, however, will never produce the results of a gaiwan or teapot.

A final alternative method is to place some leaves in a ceramic or glass cup to steep the tea and then, once the water has been added, allow the leaves to settle before drinking from the same cup. The cup can be refilled a number of times using the same tea leaves. This method may suit a few teas, but generally we do not recommend it as it will not bring out the best in the tea.

Having acquired some good tea, the next step is to steep it well. Water quality, temperature, quantity of tea and steeping time all play a part. In China the initial steeping is not drunk. It is used to wash or ‘flush’ the tea – the leaves will not have opened sufficiently and the flavour not yet emerged. The second steeping may be drunk.

Water quality is as important as the tea itself; Ideally, one should use good quality spring water with a near neutral pH (about 7) and a relatively low amount of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) – this will make a sweeter tasting tea. If the water is hard and the pH high, i.e. the water is rather alkaline, it will have a deleterious effect on the taste and particularly the fragrance of tea. Hard water can also make the brew appear more astringent. If the pH is low, i.e. rather acid, it will make for a more acidic tasting tea.

The TDS is normally expressed as mg/litre or parts per million (ppm). A water with a TDS of around 100mg/litre will be suitable for brewing raw Puer tea.*

If good spring water is not available, tap water with a good filtration system that will remove chlorine and chemicals is essential. It is better not to use commercially purified water as it can sometimes produce an unnaturally bitter taste. When boiling water for tea, it will affect the pH, usually becoming more alkaline, but bear in mind that tea, like coffee, is quite acidic.

It is worth investing some time in experimenting with different waters to find which one produces the most pleasing results, trying to keep all other factors: quantities, temperature, times, constant.

Generally speaking, water which is ‘alive’, has 活性/huo xing is going to be better than water that is ‘dead’ or denatured.

If your choice of water is limited it may be worth reversing the quest and experimenting with teas to find out which ones suit your water.

If you do not already have one, buying a stainless steel water kettle to be used solely for brewing the water of your choice is a worthwhile investment. If you boil good water in a kettle that has been habitually used for boiling say, tap-water, the result will certainly be disappointing, as the scale etc, that may have formed inside the kettle will influence the flavour of the water.

Boiling water in a ceramic or cast iron (tetsubin) kettle can produce good results, though there are some practical considerations which may limit their use for some. One also needs to pay attention to the combination of tetsubin and tea pot if one is using an Yixing pot as it seems the combinations of kettle and pot can sometmes produce a less than ideal result.

Keeping water in an earthenware water jar – these are widely used throughout Asia – helps keep the water sweet and can help adjust the pH. It will generally tend to make the water slighty alkaline if it was originally neutral.

*In the last few years in Jinghong there seems to have been a trend amongst the water bottling companies to produce water which is often near neutral in pH but more less devoid of any minerals – It suggests some heavy filtration or even reverse osmosis. Personally I am skeptical about this trend.

The amount of tea used is also critical, but varies depending on the size of the brewing vessel and the kind of tea being brewed. Personal taste being the other factor.

As a rule of thumb using a 140 ml gaiwan or steeping cup one would use say, 5-9 gms of raw Puer tea. Aside from personal taste, this is highly variable as say, two teas from different places can have different characteristics and may require an adjustment to the above guidelines. However it is important not to overfill the tea bowl or pot – the tea needs room to expand. The less space there is in the pot or gaiwan, the more the fragrance will be suppressed.

There needs to be a sensitive and practiced balance between the amount of dry tea in a given size of pot or gaiwan and the speed with which the tea is steeped if one is to produce a brew to one’s liking.

Much is said about the temperature of water that should be used for brewing tea. In Jinghong, which is around 500 metres above sea level, water boils at around 97 centigrade. This seems to work well here for raw Puer. A tea from Nannuo Shan brewed at 1600 metres tastes quite different when made in Jinghong where, because the water reaches a higher temperature, the characteristics of the tea will emerge more clearly – more fragrant, a little more astringent and bitter and with a sweeter aftertaste. The caffeine, metabolites and amino-acids also emerge – even if the same water is used.

The first steeping is critical even though it is often not drunk – a questionable logic – but if the temperature is too low it will have a damaging and almost irreversible effect on the flavour and fragrance. If this happens, one may as well throw the tea away and start again.

Bear in mind, at altitude, water is never going to reach near boiling point without special equipment. At sea level, as soon as large bubbles begin welling up in the kettle, one can take it off the boil.

A common practice is for the first steeping to be used to ‘awaken’ the tea and then to rinse out and warm the decanting jug and cups, The second steeping is typically drunk. The flavour of the tea will really start to emerge around the third or fourth steeping. Some people believe the first ‘rinse’ is to ‘clean’ the tea or wash out any chemical residues on the leaves. If the tea is high quality there should be no reason to ‘clean’ it. It is true that the first steep or two maybe do not produce much flavour, but there are lots of trichomes/毛状体/mao zhuang ti which will get washed into the water in the early steeps, so it is a shame to throw them away.

The length of time for steeping tea is again dependent on tea characteristics, altitude, etc. but perhaps mostly on personal taste. Having decided which tea to brew and what water to use, the amount of tea leaf and steeping time should be experimented with to fine-tune your tea-making. At altitude tea needs to be steeped for longer than in lower areas; In Jinghong, tea may be brewed for anything from a few seconds to a minute.

Initial steeping times of 5-10 seconds or so, increasing gradually up to several minutes for later steepings are normal and may be used as a rough rule of thumb.

The two extremes are to brew a small amount of tea for a longer time, or a larger amount of tea for less time. The latter method is more likely to produce brews that have biggish flavours but without too much astringency. Brewing tea for longer times may bring out more of the astringency and bitterness.

Another feature of Puer is the number of times it can be steeped. Unlike say, Wulong or Longjin tea which can only be steeped maybe 6-7 times, Puer can be steeped many times; good quality Puer can be steeped anywhere between 15-30 times using a small steeping cup. As the tea is repeatedly steeped, different aspects of it’s character will evolve – there should be no dramatic changes – but the drinker will notice different aspects of the teas character emerging. In a good tea, the initial fragrance will fade and the flavour will continue, but after many steepings, this too will fade and sweetness will remain.