Should I "sponge" tea?

I went to a tea shop for Chinese New Year and the owner was incredible adamant about rinsing, sponging and reusing the tea. Is this a normal thing? Should I be doing it? What teas should I be doing this with and what shouldn't I?

Sponging tea to my observation seemed to be like steeping but more for the refreshing and "waking up" the leaves rather than steeping which is more focused on the water and to flavour the water.

How many times should I wash my tea and should I sponge it before washing it, before drinking it or both?

How long should I "sponge" it?

How do I determine when to do this and when not too

When should I stop reusing tea?

Best Answer

Rinsing tea is normal in a ceremonial preparation of tea. There can be several reasons for rinsing:

To wake up the leaves: Especially with tightly rolled teas, the infusion is more optimal when you let them unfurl a bit during a short rinse.
Remove unpleasant flavor on the surface: With some roasted oolong teas or pile fermented teas, the earthy or smokey flavor on the surface can be unpleasant. So people like to rinse the first layer of flavour away.
Remove impurities: There's a lot of processing steps involved to produce a tea. And when the environment isn't kept clean, the final tea may not be clean. I personally always rinse ripe pu erh tea and oolong tea. These teas have the most chance of being 'dirty'. I don't rinse green, black, raw pu erh and white teas.