Types Of Chinese Tea

Probably you are familiar with the Chinese saying, "Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea are the seven necessities to begin a day." Though tea is last on the list, we can still see how important the tea is for the Chinese.
These include green tea, oolong, black, red, white, yellow, flower, and compressed tea. However, if we will consider tea in terms of quality, there are actually eight classes of Chinese tea. These are usually classified by procedure, quality, and preparation methods and so on.

There are actually thousand of Chinese tea varieties.
Now, let's take a look at these classes one by one.
Green Tea
Green tea is said to be the most natural type of Chinese tea. It is usually picked, naturally dried and fried briefly to get rid of its grassy smell. Unlike the other types, green tea skipped fermentation process.
Today, about 50% of China's tea is green tea. The aroma of this type of Chinese type range from medium to high, while the flavor is usually light to medium. According to some experts, green tea has the most medicinal value and the least caffeine content of all Chinese tea classes.
Oolong Tea
Chinese also call it "Qing Cha" and its typical leaves are green in the middle and red on the edges as a result of the process to soften tea leaves. This type of Chinese tea is halfway between green tea and black tea in a sense that it is half fermented.
Then, it is fried, rolled and roasted. Oolong tea leaves are basically withered and spread before undergoing a brief fermentation process.
Black Tea
The leaves of this variety become completely oxidized after processing. Also, this type of Chinese tea undergoes withering, then left to ferment for a long while, and then roasted. The Chinese black tea produces full-bodied amber when brewed.
Red Tea
It is also considered that red tea has low aroma and medium flavor and it is now divided into three subclasses: Kung Fu Red Tea, Ted Tea Bits, and Small Species Red Tea. This color is strongly highlighted during the fermentation process. As the name implies, this type of Chinese tea has red leaves and red tea color.
White Tea
This type of Chinese tea is sometimes considered as subclass of green tea. Perhaps it is for the fact that it is only withered and then roasted. Just like green tea, white tea escaped fermentation process. And, it has low caffeine content.
Yellow Tea
Apparently, yellow tea has yellow leaves and yellow tea color. According to some experts, this type of Chinese tea is an uncommon class of Chinese tea. The flavor of yellow tea is usually mild and refreshing.
Flower Tea
Generally, this class has light to medium flavor and medium to strong aroma. The Scented Tea, on the other hand, uses green tea and red tea as base and mix with scent of flowers. Well, the Flower Tea is just based on a simple concept that dried flowers are used, without much processing, to make tea. It actually subdivides into Flower Tea and Scented Tea.

Here is a unique type of Chinese tea - the Flower tea.
Compressed Tea
The final type of Chinese tea is the compressed tea. This class uses black tea as base tea. It is steamed and compressed into bricks, cakes, columns, and other shapes. Also, compressed tea has all the characteristics of black tea. It can be stored for years and decades.
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Tea Varietals

Wu Long? Green? Black?

What's your cup of tea?
Or something more exotic like pu-erh or white tea?
The major difference between all of these types of tea is how the leaves are processed after they are picked. No matter which your preference, all tea comes from the same plant - Camellia sinensis.
The others are primarily used as flowering shrubs. There are as many as 300 species of Camellia, but only one of them is used to make tea. Camellia is a genus of the family Theaceae. Even so, not all tea leaves are equal.
The assamica variety will grow to a larger plant than sinensis and has larger, thinner leaves. The sinensis variety has relatively small and narrow leaves and is more tolerant to cold. assamica (Assam tea or Indian tea). sinensis (China tea) and Camellia sinensis var.

The "tea Camellia" (Camellia sinensis) has two varieties - Camellia sinensis var.
Varietals have special characteristics that make them suitable for growing in a particular area or for producing a certain type of tea. As with most Camellias, Camellia sinensis is very easy to hybridize and this had led to the development of more than 3000 tea ‘varietals'.
Other varietals may have higher resistance to diseases which can affect the tea plant. White tea, for example, is produced from a varietal that has an abundance of fine hairs on the young leaf shoots. Varietals can be identified by leaf shape, coloring, leaf size, or other desirable characteristics.
‘Da Bai' (big white) is a varietal used to make the Japanese green tea of the same name. Many varietals are given names that describe the appearance or the use of the tea leaf.
A varietal traditionally used for white tea could be processed into wu long tea, or a black tea varietal could be used to make green tea. Most varietals have come to be associated with a certain type of tea, but this does not mean that specific varietals cannot be used for other teas.
The taste of tea is affected by the soil, the climate, the season, the varietal, the variety, the processing method, the skill of the tea processor, the brewing method, and the brewing utensils. One of the reasons why tea is so interesting is because of its limitless possibilities.
No wonder then that tea has been so popular for so many years - it's a taste of life. All of these factors affect the flavor and quality of the tea.
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Information about the types of tea, tea production, tea growing, the health benefits of tea, and making and serving tea can be found at Tea Genius is a complete knowledge base of tea. Paul Dickson is a contributing writer Tea Genius.com.
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Green Tea and How it is Made

It was first brought to Europe by the Dutch in the early 17th century AD. The tea brewed from the dried leaves of this plant has been drunk in China since perhaps the 28th century BC. sinensis, a native of Southeast Asia. The tea is a product of a plant known as C.
In China, tea is sometimes allowed to absorb the scent from various flowers particularly Jasmine. After being sorted, all grades of tea are packed in foil-lined chests to prevent the absorption of unpleasant odors or the loss of aroma during shipment. After picking, the leaves either are dried immediately and completely to produce green teas, or are partially dried and then allowed to ferment to produce various kinds of black teas.

Leaf buds and young leaves are used in making tea, the age of the leaves determining the taste and name of the particular commercial variety.
The concentration of caffeine in tea ranges from 2.5 to 4.5 percent, in contrast to an average concentration of about 1.5 percent in coffee. Tea is an aromatic stimulant, containing various polyphenols, essential oils, and caffeine.
This belt grows the best teas in the world. Green Tea, is abundantly grown in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas.
Scientists from Japan Cancer Institute have been successful
in identifying a substance in Green Tea called Catechins or
Polyphenols, which act as strong antioxidants. They are in a
position to clinically establish the old adage that "tea is a
miraculous medicine for the mantainance of health".
Catechins remain unchanged in Green Tea as leaves are merely steamed, rolled and dried as opposed to black tea which is fermented.
Green tea polyphenols applied to human skin prevent ultraviolet light-induced damage, according to a new study.
A study of over 3,400 adults in Saudi Arabia--a country of tea-lovers--found that those who drank more than 6 cups per day of the brown beverage had a more than 50% lower risk of coronary heart disease compared to tea abstainers, even after adjusting for other factors such as smoking, diet and obesity.
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