Sanpaotai Covered-Bowl Tea

Sanpaotai, the covered-bowl tea, is made of three pieces—bowl, lid and saucer—in which spring-tip or tuocha tea is steeped with longan, jujube, goji, raisin, walnut, rose and rock sugar in boiling water, the traditional hospitality tea of the Hui and Han people of Lanzhou and the northwest.

The covered-bowl tea grows from Tang and Song tea customs, taking root in the northwest along the Silk Road and flourishing in Lanzhou's teahouses and homes during the Ming and Qing as trade boomed; the Hui in particular favoured tonic additions of longan and rock sugar, shaping the local "sanpaotai" tea custom.

Brewed in the covered bowl for guests or idle afternoons, one first scrapes the lid across the surface and then sips, refilling the water many times; the lid is drawn lightly across the liquor to mingle the ingredients, and the flower-tea fragrance meets fruity sweetness in the daily drink that accompanies Lanzhou's idle talk and its noodles and cold snacks.

The three-piece lid-bowl-saucer set, the tonic pairing of spring-tip tea with longan, jujube and goji, and the Hui custom of refilling again and again are what set sanpaotai apart from other tea drinks.