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The Chinese Tea Culture
March 8th, 2010 | 
Author: ng>Who discovered the Chinese tea
Chinese were the first to discover tea
In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company introduced Chinese tea for the first time to Europe. By the mid-17th century, afternoon tea had become a standard ritual of the British nobility. It is interesting to note that the two different pronunciations for “tea” most common in languages that borrowed the word from Chinese-cha and tee-originate from different dialects of Chinese.
Chinese people are believed to have enjoyed tea drinking for more than 4,000 years. Legend has it that Yan Di, one of three rulers in ancient times, tasted all kinds of herbs to find medical cures. One day,as he was being poisoned by some herb he had ingested; a drop of water from a tea tree dripped into his mouth and he was saved. For a long time, tea was used as an herbal medicine. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, tea was a religious offering. During the Spring and Autumn Period, people ate fresh tea leaves as vegetables. With the popularization of Buddhism from the Three Kingdoms to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, tea’s refreshing effect made it a favorite among monks in Za-Zen meditation.
Chinese tea as a drink prospered during the Tang Dynasty, and tea shops became popular. A major event of this time was the completion of Tea Classics, the cornerstone of Chinese tea culture, by Lu Yu, Tea Sage of China,. This little book details rules concerning various aspects of tea, such as growth areas for tea trees, wares and skills for processing tea, tea tasting, the history of Chinese tea and quotations from other records, comments on tea from various places, and notes on what occasions tea wares should be complete and when some wares could be omitted.
How Chinese tea is made
Tea is made from the young, tender leaves of the tea tree. The differences among the many kinds of tea available are based on the particular methods used to process the leaves. The key to the whole process is the roasting and fermentation. Through fermentation, the originally deep green leaves become reddish-brown in color. The longer the fermentation, the darker the color. Depending on the length of the roasting and degree of fermentation, the fragrance can range from floral, to fruity, to malty.
Cultivating teapots
The proportion of tea leaves to water also depends on the kind of tea leaves used. The teapot may be filled from one-quarter to three-quarters full with tea leaves, depending mainly on how tightly curled the tea leaves are as a result of the rolling and roasting processes. The teapot is then filled with water. Steeping time starts at one minute, but varies from tea to tea. The time required for subsequent brews from the same leaves must be proportionally lengthened. The best kind of teapot to use for most fermented teas is a purple clay ceramic pot. The size of the pot should be in correct proportion to the size of the cups. Ideally, the cups should have white interiors, to facilitate accurate assessment of the color of the tea.
Types of tea
Chinese tea may be classified into five types of teas according to the different methods by which it is processed.
Green tea
Green tea is the variety which keeps the original colour of the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.
Black tea
Black tea, known as “red tea” (hong cha) in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui , Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.
Oolong tea
This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China’s southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.
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Chinese tea production
The history of tea in china can be traced back to Three Thousand years ago. Tea had been used for the “Offer Sacrifices” to Gods or the ancestors.
A new Chinese 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 seldom chemical fertilizers. 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 Chinese 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 from the end of March and lasts through October, altogether 20-30 times from the same plants at intervals of seven to ten days. With a longer interval, the quality of the tea will deteriorate.
The new leaves must be parched in Chinese 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.
How Oolong Tea is produced
Manual production method supported by tradition and craftsmanship.
The production of delicious oolong tea requires time-honored tradition and outstanding craftsmanship. Tea leaves are picked on the morning of a clear day. They should be picked in units consisting of one bud and three leaves and exposed to the sun. This is the first stage. The second stage is to dry them indoors to promote fermentation. The most crucial part in the production of oolong tea is when to stop fermentation. As oolong tea is fermented to some extent, it is called semi-fermented tea.
Experience is required to identify the best time to stop the fermentation, which is when the leaves are 30% red and 70% green. After this, they are rubbed repeatedly to generate good flavor, aroma, and texture. Then they are dried using charcoal. At the final stage, a tea master grades the quality according to the flavor and characteristics of each batch. China’s Fujian Chaye Jin Chukou Gongsi (Tea Import and Export Corporation and Fujian Tea Association) exports oolong tea to Japan.
Chinese Tea – The Basics
The roots of western tea-drinking go back thousands of years to China, where over the centuries different qualities of tea and brewing methods grew up, tea-drinking customs developed and new objects associated with tea were created. Gradually the Chinese tea drinking habit spread throughout the world and to all classes. A tea culture was born on which different eras and dynasties have each left their mark. In today’s world the various types of tea and tea-drinking customs developed over the centuries can still be found somewhere in some form or another.
Chinese tea has been around for thousands of years. Chinese tea was first discovered and used as medicine. Then it evolved into a beverage, and further in to part of Chinese culture.
There are 8 classes of Chinese tea:
Chinese tea are divide into 8 classes: Green tea, Oolong tea, Black tea, Red tea, White tea, Yellow tea, Flower tea, Compressed tea.
The Oolong tea basics
Oolong (in Chinese, Wulong) is a time-honored Chinese tea (derived from the Camellia sinensis plant) someplace betwixt green and black within oxidization. It varies from ten percent to seventy percent oxidization.
The name oolong tea descends into the English language from the Chinese name wulong (in the Min Nan verbalized form). The Chinese name means “black dragon tea.” There are 3 broadly recognized accounts about how this Chinese name occurred.
Oolongs come in either roasted or light. While many wulongs may be consumed at once, like pu-erh tea, many oolong teas might improve with long aging with regular light roasting on a low charcoal fire.
