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Chinese Tea
China is the homeland of tea. It is believed that China has tea-shrubs as early as five to six thousand years ago, and human cultivation of the tea plant dates back two thousand years. Tea from China, along with her silk and porcelain, began to be known the world over more than a thousand years ago and has since then been an important Chinese export. 

At present more than forty countries in the world grow tea, with Asian countries producing 90% of the world's total output. All tea trees in other countries have their origin directly or indirectly in China. The words for tealeaves or tea as a drink in many countries are derivatives from the Chinese character "cha." The Russians call it "cha'i", which sounds like "chaye" (tea leaves) as it is pronounced in northern China, and the English word "tea" sounds similar to the pronunciation of its counterpart in Xiamen (Amoy). The Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese, though pronounced with a slight difference. The habit of tea drinking spread to Japan in the 6th century, but it was not introduced to Europe and America till the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the number of tea drinkers in the world is legion and is still on the increase.   

Chinese Tea Classifications

Although there are hundreds of varieties of Chinese tea, they can mainly be classified into five categories. The classifications are determined by the method of processing the tea. The five types are green tea, black tea, brick tea, scented tea, and Wulong (Oolong) tea.  

Green Tea

Green Tea is the most natural of all Chinese tea classes. It's picked, naturally dried, and then fried briefly (a process called "killing the green") to get rid of it's grassy smell. Fermentation process is skipped.

Green Tea has the most medicinal value and the least caffeine content of all Chinese tea classes. Aroma is medium to high, flavor is light to medium. About 50% of China's teas is Green tea.      

Black Tea

Chinese Black tea produces a full-bodied amber when brewed. Black tea undergoes withering (drying), left to ferment for a long while, and then roasted. Black tea leaves become completely oxidized after processing.

Black tea has a robust taste with a mild aroma. It contains the highest amount of caffeine in Chinese tea classes.

Brick Tea (Compressed Tea) 

Most Chinese Compressed Tea uses Black Tea as a base tea. It's steamed and compressed into bricks, cakes, columns and other shapes. Compressed Tea has all the characteristics of Black Tea. It can be stored for years or even decades. Aged Compressed Tea has a mild flavor that Compressed Tea fans would pay a huge price for.      

Scented / Flower Tea

Chinese Flower Tea is a unique class of Chinese tea. It consists of Flower Tea and Scented Tea.

Flower Tea is a simple concept where dried flowers are used without much processing to make tea. Scented Tea uses green tea or red tea as a base and is mixed with scent of flowers. Chinese Flower Tea has a light to medium flavor and medium to strong aroma. 

Wulong Tea (Oolong Tea)

Wulong tea, which combines the freshness of green tea and the fragrance of black tea is becoming popular with more and more people. It is also popular for its medicinal benefits, including assisting the body building process and in dieting. Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan are the major producers of this kind of tea. Oolong tea grows on cliffs. Harvesting this type of tea is very difficult which makes it the most precious.     
      
Tea Production

A new tea-plant must grow for five years before its leaves can be picked and at 30 years of age it will be too old to be productive. The trunk of the old plant must then be cut off to force new stems to grow out of the roots in the coming year. By repeated rehabilitation in this way, a plant may serve for about l00 years.

For the fertilization of tea gardens, soya-bean cakes or other varieties of organic manure are generally used and chemical fertilizers are seldom used.  When pests are discovered the affected plants will be removed to prevent their spread and also to avoid the use of pesticides. 

The season of tea-picking depends on local climate and varies from area to area. On the shores of West Lake in Hangzhou where the famous green tea Longjing (Dragon Well) comes from, picking starts at the end of March and lasts through October.  Leaves will be picked 20-30 times from the same plants at intervals of seven to ten days.  With longer intervals the quality of the tea will deteriorate.      

A skilled female picker can only gather 600 grams (a little over a pound) of green tea leaves a day.

The new leaves must be parched in tea cauldrons. This work  which used to be done manually has been largely mechanized. Top-grade Dragon Well tea, however, still has to be stir-parched by hand, doing only 250 grams every half hour. The tea-cauldrons are heated electrically to a temperature of about 25oC or 74oF. It takes four pounds of fresh leaves to produce one pound of parched tea.      

The best Dragon Well tea is gathered several days before Qingming (Pure Brightness, 5th solar term) when new twigs have just begun to grow and carry "one leaf and a bud." To make one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of finished tea, 60,000 tender leaves have to be plucked. In the old days Dragon Well tea of this grade was meant solely for the imperial household; it was, therefore, known as "tribute tea". 

For the processes of grinding, parching, rolling, shaping and drying other grades of tea various machines have been developed and built, turning out about 100 kilograms of finished tea an hour and relieving the workers from much of their drudgery.     

Ten Most Famous Chinese Tea

  • Longjing: Produced at Longjing village near the West Lake, Hangzhou, Zhejiang.      
  • Biluochun: Produced at Wu County, Jiangsu.      
  • Huangshanmaofeng: Produced at Mt. Huangshan in Anhui.      
  • Junshan Silver Needle: Produced at Qingluo Island on Dongting Lake.      
  • Qimen Black Tea : Produced at Qimen County in Anhui.      
  • Liuan Guapian: Produced at Liuan County in Henan.     
  • Xinyang Maojian: Produced at Xinyang, Henan.      
  • Duyun Maojian: Produced at Duyun Mountain, Guizhou.      
  • Wuyi Rock Tea: Produced at Wuyi Mountain, Fujian.      
  • Tieguanyin: Produced at Anxi County, Fujian.
Date: 27 Jan 07    Views: 89    Comments: 0          

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