Chaozhou Gongfu Tea Art

The art of Chaozhou gongfu tea is a tea-brewing practice of the Chaoshan region whose history reaches back to the Song dynasty; it joined the national ICH list in 2008, and in 2022 — as a key component of 'Traditional tea processing techniques and associated social practices' — entered UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Gongfu tea draws chiefly on oolong, above all Phoenix Dancong, brewed in a small red-clay pot and Ruoshen cups; its twenty-one steps — from displaying the ware and lighting the clay stove to drawing water with a sand kettle and boiling over olive-pit charcoal — fuse spirit, etiquette, brewing, pouring and appraisal.

Gongfu tea is the central ritual of Chaozhou hospitality and daily life — 'where there are Chaozhou people, there is gongfu tea' — carrying the region's etiquette, ethics and sense of community, and travelling overseas with its diaspora.

Gongfu tea is brewed in homes, teahouses and the lanes of the old town throughout Chaozhou's towns and villages.