BOLI MINI - 200 ml

BOLI MINI is our house gong dao bei ("fairness pitcher"—公道杯). Also known as a cha hai ("tea sea"—茶海), this half-pint pitcher is used in small format tea steeping (sometimes called gongfu or gongfucha—"tea with effort"). It makes a gongfu session "fair" by collecting steeps of equal extraction from a gaiwan or teapot to then be decanted into drinking cups; without it, tea poured into the first cup would theoretically be weaker than tea poured into the next (as the leaves continue to extract through the pouring process). Certain small-format tea making methods, like Chaozhou gongfu, skip this step in favor of decanting into cups with a back-and-forth motion, ensuring each cup receives tea at all phases of extraction.  When serving groups of 2-4, a gong dao bei is necessary. For solo sessions, BOLI MINI holds steeps too large for a single cup. (Our house gaiwan is just under 200 ml; if the average tea cup is 50 ml, one steep is 3-4 cups' worth, making a fairness pitcher indispensable.)Als