White Peony Tea Cake

100ml Gaiwan
5g | 95°C | 1 min | 4 infusions

300ml Teapot
10g | 100°C | 5 mins | 2 infusions

Cold brew
15g | 1L | Refrigerated | 10-15 hrs

These are just guidelines. We recommend experimenting with a range of temperatures and leaf-to-water ratios to understand the tea and your own taste preferences.

When breaking into your tea cake, the aim of the game is to get as many whole chunks as you can, and keep the leaves intact. Try not to crumble it too much, as the crushed tea leaves will give a more bitter, astringent taste. Still, some crushed leaves are inevitable here.

You can use a tea pick or just your hands. With a tea pick, work from the outside in and look for an opening in the edge of the cake. Make sure the hand holding down the tea cake is parallel (not perpendicular) to the pick to avoid stabbing yourself. Find an area with some give, push the tea pick in, then slowly peel a layer of tea leaves upwards, keeping it intact with your thumb.

Then place that chunk into your warmed teapot or gaiwan, and go in for another.

If you don’t have a tea pick, you can try breaking off some chunks from the edge with your fingers, like breaking off a piece of bread from the corner of a loaf.