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Thread: Long-spout Teapot Kung Fu

  1. #1
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    Tea Pot Fu

    Follow this link for an embedded video. Totally worth the view if you don't know about this art.

    Spouts of Fury: When Tea and Kung Fu Collide

    Great Big Story Great Big Story February 7, 2017
    Ya'an, China, is home to some of the country's best tea. It's also home to the amazing long spout tea performers. This performance art, which dates back to 220 AD, mixes Kung Fu and the long spout metal teapot. Liu Xumin is a tea performer who has spent years mastering this ancient art form. His hope, he says, is to "achieve the integration of tea pot and human, of heaven and human, and of tea and human."

    This Great Big Story was inspired by Genesis.
    I've been to restaurants where they served tea through long spout tea pots like this. They didn't spin the pots about like this guy, but they did pour streams of boiling water into cups that were yards away. It was alarming and entertaining.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  2. #2
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    Kung Fu TEA

    Ok not sure if this is old here but I know brother Gene loves this stuff...hehe

    http://cykwoon.freewebspace.com/
    https://www.youtube.com/user/Subitai

    "O"..."Some people believe that you need to make another human being tap out to be a valid art. But I am constantly reminding them that I only have to defend myself and keep you from hurting me in order to Win."
    "O"..."The Hung Style practiced solely in methods of Antiquity would ultimately only be useful versus Similar skill sets"

  3. #3
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    I merged this Subatai

    I posted a yahoo vid on this above, but those don't embed as nicely as YouTube on our forum. Thanks for the assist, bro!
    Gene Ching
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  4. #4
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    Xumin Liu in SF

    Part magic, part martial art: Sichuan tea master performs in SF
    By Jonathan KauffmanJanuary 23, 2018 Updated: January 23, 2018 2:49pm


    Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle
    IMAGE 1 OF 4 Xumin Liu pours tea while performing the ancient art of gongfu cha at Z & Y Restaurant in San Francisco.



    In the hands of Xumin Liu, a long-spouted copper teakettle becomes a rapier, a whip, a copper-colored wash of light. Three lunches a week, Liu travels from table to table at Z & Y Restaurant, swirling the kettle around his head in intricate circles and letting it pirouette in the air. Every sequence of spins ends with the base of the kettle held high, its yard-long spout lasering a stream of steaming water into a cup of tea leaves.

    Xiumin Liu is a master of two traditional Sichuan arts: gongfu tea, poured from a copper kettle with a three-foot spout, and “face changing.” He is performing at two Sichuan restaurants in San Francisco through March 2018.

    Liu, 35, was born into a tea-farming family on Mengding Mountain southwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. In his early 20s, he studied the 18 forms of “dragon-flying” gongfu cha postures under a Sichuanese tea master named Shifu Chen, then moved on to a Taoist monastery on Qingcheng Mountain to practice a form of martial arts called wushu. The two traditions combine in the fluidity of his movements, and the way he can hold his body at improbable angles for minutes at a time.

    Travelers to Chengdu can see tourist performances in teahouses, but few gongfu cha masters make it to the United States. Fewer still are also skilled in Liu’s second art: Sichuan face-swapping.

    A decade ago, Liu was demonstrating gongfu cha in Korea when Shimen Lu, a famous face-swapping performer, noticed the young man’s performance and invited him to become a student. This second art Liu now demonstrates at the Hans’ restaurants at dinnertime. To the beat of rousing music, he stalks amid the tables, gold balls on his headdress quivering, face covered with a blue snarl. His red fan flashes past his face and — op! — the blue mask changes to green. You can watch the transformation a dozen times, even getting close, and not see the skill behind the surprise.

    When pouring tea Sichuan style, Liu says through a translator, the purpose of the copper kettle isn’t merely aesthetic. The thin stream of water releases the flavor and the aroma in the tea leaves. “The water from this copper kettle is good for your skin, your brain and your health,” he adds.

    He has been surprised by the Americans who set their teacups on their heads when he comes by, or merely open their mouths, not realizing the water gushing through the spout of his kettle is close to boiling. Everyone asks for a photo, too. Liu is used to that, at least.

    Lijun Han says he asked Master Liu to travel from his home on Mengding Mountain to Old Gold Mountain — the old Chinese name for San Francisco — to introduce Americans to these traditional arts. “This way the tea, the masks and the Sichuan food complete an understanding of Sichuan culture,” Han says. “You no longer see just the food.”

    Liu has only been in town for a few weeks, so his impressions of San Francisco are faint. He’s impressed by Hetch Hetchy water, which is very soft, very beautiful, he says. Perfect for making tea.

    Xiumin Liu is a master of two traditional Sichuan arts: gongfu tea, poured from a copper kettle with a three-foot spout, and “face changing.” He is performing at two Sichuan restaurants in San Francisco through March 2018.

    Last week he toured the city, and the sight of the ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge so inspired him that he began practicing his 18 forms right on the street. “The air is good for training,” he says. “It’s very crisp and clean.”

    Z & Y Restaurant: 655 Jackson St., San Francisco, (415) 981-8988 or www.zandyrestaurant.com

    Chili House: 726 Clement St., San Francisco, (415) 387-2658 or www.chilihousesf.com

    Al Cheng contributed translation assistance.

    Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jonkauffman

    Jonathan Kauffman
    Food Reporter
    There's some embedded vids behind the link. Looks cool - wish I had the time to chase this guy down for an article but my cup is full right now.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  5. #5
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    More Xumin Liu

    There are videos behind the link.

    This Kung Fu Tea Master Is Basically Tea Bae
    Like salt bae, but you know, with tea
    by Caleb Pershan Feb 20, 2018, 5:00pm PST


    Monica Wong/Z & Y Restaurant

    For the past few weeks, Xumin Liu has thrilled San Francisco diners by filling teacups from his sword-length copper kettle at Z & Y Restaurant and Chili House. The performance shines in the age of Instagram, but it’s actually an ancient practice known as gongfu cha or “kung fu tea,” a thousand-year-old art.

    Liu, a 35-year-old master practitioner, spins his kettle and pours hot tea with the precision, seriousness, and panache of “Salt Bae” — the chef and restaurateur Nusret Gökçe whose graceful salt sprinkling brought him viral internet attention. But as one commenter points out on a video of Liu (taken by none other than Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters) the tea master might make Salt Bae look a little bit lazy. Plus, he’s playing with even hotter stuff.

    Of course Liu, like Gökçe, who just opened his first New York restaurant, is much more than a pretty face and impressive gesture. For one thing, Liu’s got several poses, all of which he learned studying under a Sichuanese tea master. And for another, gongfu cha isn’t the only trick Liu has up his sleeve. He’s also a master of the art of bian lian, or “face swapping,” a dance that involves switching traditional masks at lightning-quick speed.

    Z & Y and Chili House owner LIjun Han brought Liu to San Francisco, where he’ll continue to perform for the next two weeks. On Mondays and Fridays during lunch and dinner he’s at Z & Y Restaurant, and on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he’ll be at Chili House. Liu will also perform kung fu tea at 7 p.m. on Sundays at Z & Y before switching hats — or faces, as it were — to perform his face swapping routine afterward.

    Z & Y Restaurant
    655 Jackson St, , CA 94133
    (415) 981-8988


    More on Xumin Liu
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  6. #6
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    Long-spout Teapot Kung Fu

    In Chengdu, Kung Fu Tea Is Torn Between Tradition and Performance
    A martial arts-influenced style of pouring tea is catching on in China.
    BY JORDAN PORTER JUNE 20, 2019


    Performances with copper kettles are becoming increasingly popular attractions in Chengdu. CHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

    KUNG FU TEA MASTER ZENG Xiao Long sits humbly in a small tea room, inside a massive courtyard in Chengdu. Dressed up in stone and bamboo to resemble an ancient Chinese village, the courtyard features an outdoor teahouse, a canteen, a public vegetable garden, and a handful of peacocks to complete the aesthetic. “When you say kung fu tea, you probably don’t mean what we do when we say kung fu tea,” Zeng says, pouring hot water over tea leaves in a gaiwan, or three-piece tea cup. Using the lid to hold the leaves back, he pours the tea into a small glass decanter, and then into thimble-sized teacups.

    “This is also kung fu tea. In fact, this is what it really is,” he says. “You are probably talking about the long-spout teapot performance.” He motions to the banged-up copper teapots with spouts two or three feet long, leaning against the wall behind him. A small group of Chinese tourists enter the room, which serves as Zeng’s office. The leader introduces Zeng as the country’s most famous and best long-spout teapot performer. She doesn’t mention that he is also this art’s creator and one of its original ambassadors.



    Chengdu today is famous for its long-spout teapot performances. In theaters, boisterous restaurants, and touristy performance areas throughout the city, young men and women perform martial arts sequences, acrobatics, and dances, all while daringly twirling, throwing, and spinning long-spout teapots around their heads and bodies. The vibrant copper pots are filled with hot water, which dramatically makes its way into the teacups of lucky patrons.

    This is often called kung fu tea, but it is not in fact martial in its art or origins. Only a few true wushu moves make their way into the choreography. The word kung fu (功夫), in most cases, refers to arts or disciplines mastered through hard work and diligence, where a greater understanding is ultimately achieved. In this way, it also refers to the ancient Daoist tea ceremony. Disciples study for years to properly perform this much less dramatic ceremony, which emphasizes restraint, subtle hand movements, and tea sets that are petite and pretty. This type of tea ceremony is often viewed as a form of meditation, and it’s the more widely known version of kung fu tea.


    Subtle movements and elegant tea sets are a feature of traditional kung fu tea. ALEKSEI POPOV/ALAMY

    Long before Zeng twirled pointed copper pots and performed acrobatics, he knew little of tea or of kung fu. He was born in 1977 into a farming family in the Da Zhou region of Sichuan, east of Chengdu. He explains that in this mountainous region, people lived and worked in long, narrow buildings built into the hills. In local teahouses, cramped spaces made long-spout teapots a necessity, so patrons wouldn’t be moved or interrupted by the reach of the waiters refilling their cups with hot water. While long-spout teapots were a local custom, the young Zeng wasn’t very interested in tea. He moved to Chengdu to work in a restaurant, and found himself barely scraping by in the big city. A job ad for a tea master caught his eye with its lofty salary, inspiring him to throw in his table-cleaning towel and buy a long-spouted teapot.

    At this point, the long-spout teapot performance did not exist. There were, however, contests where participants gracefully performed the original kung fu tea. But “there was really only one motion for pouring tea from a long spout,” Zeng says. Without a background in the arts, martial or otherwise, Zeng developed his own idea of what a tea performance should be, incorporating elements of tai chi and kung fu from TV and performers he’d seen. In 1999, he entered a tea ceremony competition, and with his unique movements and flare took second place. While there were objections over his flamboyance, a new tradition was born.


    A group of young tea-servers learn the long-spout teapot performance. CHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

    Soon, Zeng and a small group of fellow performers began meeting to develop new, more athletic, and spectacular tea-pouring movements. They grew in popularity, with Zeng making a series of high-profile TV appearances, including a performance during China’s 2013 New Year’s Gala which thrust him into national fame. Zeng notes that while some of the others are still involved in the tea industry, he is the only one who stuck with performing. With his growing celebrity status, students sought him out as a teacher.

    While kung fu tea as a cultural performance is a relatively new phenomenon in Sichuan, the history of tea here is deep and rich. Mengding Mountain, just 120 miles east of Chengdu, is traditionally considered the place where tea was first cultivated some 2,000 years ago. And tea house culture, whether featuring the short-spouted teapots of the Chengdu plain or the long-spouted ones of the mountains, is an essential part of the region’s identity. “A tea house is a little Chengdu, and Chengdu is a big tea house,” author Di Wang notes in the opening of his book The Teahouse: Small Business, Everyday Culture, and Public Politics in Chengdu. Today in Chengdu, there are over 13,000 tea houses serving as the spots for local gossip and information exchange, as well as rest stops for tourists basking in the beauty of Chengdu’s famous leisurely lifestyle.


    A typical, bustling Chengdu teahouse, sans any long-spout teapots. RYAN PYLE/GETTY IMAGES

    For the most part, tea culture in Chengdu is unpretentious, more the setting for socializing than the high art of the tea ceremony. But Wu Bo, a young local tea master, worries that the sensational nature of the long-spout tea performance belittles the art of tea itself. She says the performers often understand very little about tea, its history, and its culture. “Some of them don’t even use hot water, it’s just a dance,” she says. “And for many, it’s not about tea, it’s just a job.” To her, true kung fu tea is the opposite of performance, and almost minimalist in its expression. “You can spend all your money on fancy teaware, or learn special movements, but a real tea master can make great tea in anything,” she says.

    But performance plays an important role in modern Chinese travel, and cultural displays are consumed voraciously by domestic tourists. Travelers don historical or regionally specific clothing for photo-ops at recreated historic sites to celebrate their history. Even on television, cultural performances and costumed dances entice tourists to new places where they can do more than sightsee. According to Claudia Huang, a Chengdu-born cultural anthropology PhD, performance represents a more meaningful form of consumption for young Chinese people than the purchase of commodities. “This phenomenon of performance serves as a way to celebrate and glorify China’s own cultural history, in a quick and easily digestible way,” she says.


    While long-spout teapots are traditional, performing with them is fairly new. CHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

    Zeng’s style of kung fu tea has certainly become a calling card of the city of Chengdu, and synonymous throughout China with Sichuan tea culture. However, he fears that performance itself is not enough to give the art meaning, and actively takes time to pursue the study of tea. He requires his disciples to study as well, sometimes forcing them away from their athletic training to sit down and actually learn how to pour. “I feel a responsibility,” he says. “I am the creator of the long-spout teapot performance. I need to make sure my students learn about the real kung fu tea as well.”

    He echoes Wu Bo’s sentiments that most young people study kung fu tea so they can make money. Zeng has hundreds of disciples. For more than 80 percent, he says, this will just be a job. “The market is good right now, there is a big need for performers, and after only a few months of practice you can earn a good wage for performances,” he says. Someday, he believes, there will be a ceiling. Wages will fall, and fewer and fewer people will choose to study this new art.

    All but retired from performing, Zeng sits in his office and sips tea from a small cup, his gaze drifting towards the future. “It is my dream to build a tea house some day, where the long-spout teapots can also find their place again off the stage and are used in their original fashion,” he says: simply to pour tea.

    Gastro Obscura covers the world’s most wondrous food and drink.
    I really need to get an article on long-spout teapots someday...

    Meanwhile, I'm creating an indie thread for Long-spout Teapot Kung Fu. The posts above are from our general Tea thread.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  7. #7
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    trending?

    Another story, same vid.


    Mesmerizing Chinese Tea Ceremony Combines Kung Fu Moves with a Long-Spouted Teapot

    By Sara Barnes on July 3, 2019


    Screenshot: Great Big Story

    There is an art to tea. You might imagine this artistry as being expressed in the blend of the leaves or through the tools in which a cup of it is prepared, but in the Sichuan province of China, there is a performative aspect to enjoying the drink that fuses it with martial art moves. Called kung fu tea or long spout tea performance, it incorporates these movements into how the tea is poured. Performers twirl, throw, and spin the teapots as sequenced choreography, much to the delight of their audience.

    The long spout teapot is an invention that’s thousands of years old. It was introduced during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280 CE) as a way to protect the warlord named Liu Bei as he enjoyed a cup of tea. His son, suspicious and worried that servants would try and assassinate his father, had Zhuge Liang develop a long-spouted pot so that Liu could be poured his tea from a safe distance.

    The threat of death during tea is gone, and the long spout is instead used as a centerpiece for the enthralling ceremonies. To prepare for them, tea masters practice for years before they have their first successful performance. Liu Xumin, a long spout tea performer in Ya’an, said that he practiced seven to eight hours a day in order to perfect the required moves, *****ing and scalding himself in the process. “The performance I do is called ‘Mending Mountain 18 Forms of Drago-Flying Postures,’” he says. “It has 18 tea pouring postures.” As he moves, he thinks of the teapot as an extension of his body. “I hope to achieve the integration of teapot and human, of heaven and human, and of tea and human.”

    Although the tradition of tea is very old, the moves of kung fu tea are relatively new. Zeng Xiao Long, a restaurant worker turned tea master, helped usher in the mesmerizing postures that have made long spout tea performances so popular today. In 1999, he participated in a contest which judged how gracefully tea masters performed the original kung fu tea moves—at the time, there was only one motion. Zeng, sans any sort of martial art or dance training, developed his own movements based on tai chi and kung fu that he had seen on television as well as in-person performances. He took second place in that competition and the tradition was never the same. Zeng then gathered with a small group of performers to develop new tea-pouring movements and the style grew from there.

    The Sichuan province, particularly Chengdu, is the place to be to catch a showing of kung fu tea. But, it’s not alone. With the popularity of long spout performances, locales around the world have employed these tea masters to artfully pour cups of tea.

    Long spout tea pouring incorporates martial art moves into serving a cup of tea. Watch these mesmerizing performances below.

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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