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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Green Tea vs Black Tea - Which Is Better?

Which tea is better - green tea or black tea? As we all know, green tea is a very powerful weapon against several illnesses. But how about black tea? Do we also get health benefits from it?
Black tea does have several health benefits but they are not nearly as wide-ranging and powerful as those of green tea.
But what makes green tea more beneficial than black tea?
Catechins are, by the way, the one responsible for green tea's amazing health benefits. Catechins are green tea's main ingredient containing eight times more than black tea. The answer is "catechins"!
Bottom line is that the more catechins a tea has, the better it is for your general health.
Unfortunately, these catechins are mostly oxidized into theaflavins and thearubigens during the manufacture of black tea.
Theaflavins and thearubigens do have some of their own health benefits, but they can't compare with the wide-ranging effects of green tea's catechins, particularly the powerful EGCG.
While a cup of black tea contains about 5- 10 mg of the powerful catechin EGCG, a cup of green tea contains more than eight times than amount, or 40-90 mg.
Although green and black teas came from the same plant - Camellia Sinensis, what makes them different from each other in terms of taste and health benefits is the processing method.
This processing is so minimal that green tea can be consumed the same leaves are picked. When making green tea, processors lightly steam or gently heat the leaves to stop the oxidation process.
On the other hand, tea leaves designed to become black tea are allowed to oxidize and undergo considerably more processing, including a fermentation process that produces the dark-brown and even reddish color of black tea.
But the process used to make a black tea destroys compounds called polyphenols. It is the polyphenols that are responsible for the long list of health benefits of green tea.
Despite its stronger color and flavor, black tea cannot come close to green tea as far as health benefits are concerned.
Because green tea's processing is as little as possible, green tea retains its original polyphenols.
Rose Antonio has been a green tea drinker for many, many years. She has a special interest in alternative healing and natural remedies.
Though she has tried different types of tea from different countries, she always go back to Japanese Green Tea not only because of its taste but more so because of its amazing health benefits gathered from years and years of research and from talking to many health enthusiasts.

Can Green Tea Help With Gastrointestinal Illnesses?

For the last several years, there has been an abundance of research on the effects of green tea and the many health benefits that it can offer. For centuries, Asians have used green tea for health, both to prevent disease and treat illnesses.
Green tea is not fermented during processing, but black tea does go through a fermentation process. The differences occur from the differences in how the tea is processed. There are many different types of tea, but they all come from this plant. Tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant.
For this reason, green tea has more healthy anti-oxidants and therefore more health benefits than black tea. These new compounds are not as healthy as the unaltered catechins in a tea leaf in its original state. Fermenting the tea leaves, converts the catechins to other compounds. Tea leaves naturally contain anti-oxidants.
Anti-oxidants are critical to our health because they combat free radicals. Each day, as we convert food to energy, we create these free radicals in our body, which damage our cells and our DNA. Over time, these unchecked free radicals cause disease and aging.
Fruits and vegetables are also great anti-oxidant sources. For this reason, large doses of anti-oxidants, particularly those like the ones found in green tea, have been found to prevent many types of disease, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease and potentially other diseases, as well.
For this reason, green tea seems to calm the inflammation that accompanies inflammatory bowel disease and other gastrointestinal problems. One study reported by the UK Tea Council found that green tea's anti-oxidants spend a lot of time in the intestinal tract, and have an anti-inflammatory effect on this part of the body. But, recently there has been powerful news about the possible effects of green tea on gastrointestinal problems, like inflammatory bowel disease.
This theory stands to reason, since green tea is known to have an anti-inflammatory effect all over the body. These powerful anti-inflammatory effects are also thought to be one of the reasons that green tea is effective at preventing and treating heart disease.
Inflammatory bowel disease refers to a group of disorders that cause the intestines to become inflamed (red and swollen). The inflammation often lasts a long time and comes back repeatedly. Over 600,000 Americans suffer from some sort of inflammatory bowel disease every year.
Inflammatory bowel diseases can cause cramping, pain, diarrhea, weight loss and bleeding in your intestines. Two of the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease are Chron's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Crohn's disease causes ulcers along the small and large intestines. However, it can sometimes also cause inflammation around the rectum, too. Ulcerative colitis causes ulcers in the lower part of the large intestine, sometimes starting at the rectum.
We don't fully understand what causes inflammatory bowel diseases, though we do know that it runs in families. It may be caused by a germ or problem with your immune system. It is usually diagnosed through x-rays and other tests that look directly into your intestines to find evidence of damage.
Inflammatory bowel diseases are not life threatening, but they can be very painful and disruptive to your life. In most cases, they are treated with anti-inflammatory medications, and sometimes anti-biotics, if the particular problem seems to be caused by an infection. In extreme cases of ulcerative colitis, surgery is sometimes performed to remove part of the colon. Surgery doesn't seem to have any effect on Crohn's disease.
Because the typical treatment is designed to reduce the inflammation in the intestines, it stands to reason that green tea would hold much promise in treatment. It is likely that many inflammatory bowel disease patients could find some relief very quickly by incorporating green tea into their diets.
Because sufferers of inflammatory bowel diseases are often placed on diets that call for reduced amounts of fiber, they often don't eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. The fiber in fruits and vegetables can further irritate the bowels. This means that they may not be getting all the anti-oxidants they need, particularly since they may need more than the average person to reduce the inflammation in their systems. This makes green tea the perfect alternative; it provides powerful anti-oxidants with zero fiber.
If you suffer from any form of irritable bowel disease, it's a good idea to give green tea a try. It has no side effects and is well tolerated by most people, regardless of their health issues. While it does contain caffeine, it is usually well tolerated even by the caffeine sensitive, because its caffeine level is very low. Adding some green tea to your diet may be a simple way to get some relief from the painful symptoms of irritable bowel diseases.
Jon M. Stout is the Chairman of the Golden Moon Tea Company. Golden Moon Tea carefully selects the finest rare and orthodox teas, which are processed slowly and handcrafted with extreme care. At their website, you can learn more about their current
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