I’ve always had a myth: should there be jasmine flowers in jasmine tea or not? If there are no flowers, why is it called jasmine tea? What is the relationship between the popular flower and fruit tea and flower tea?
01 Flowers in flower tea / not only jasmine /
With a small gauze bag filled with tea into the heart of the lotus flower, the lotus closed at night, and then remove the tea when it opens the next day. The tea absorbs the fragrance of the flowers brewed up the aroma especially.
This is Shen Fu recorded in the “six records of floating life” Chinese people play tea elegant practice.
In fact, the history of incense into the tea can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty on a layer of flowers such as osmanthus, jasmine, rose, rose, grapefruit flowers, gardenia, etc. A layer of tea cellar (xūn) system to play a variety of ways. But the commercial production of flower tea is in the late Qing Dynasty in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, and if there is no special reference, flower tea refers to jasmine tea.
The birth of jasmine tea in Fuzhou is perhaps a necessity. This is because jasmine tea is made from baked green tea, and Fuzhou itself is an old green tea producing area. The jasmine flower originated in the tropics and is cold by nature. The higher the latitude of the jasmine flower, the fresher the fragrance of the flower. This is a place where jasmine can grow in the open air with a rich and fresh fragrance.
In addition to jasmine tea, there are also a few plum, wax plum, osmanthus, orchid, rose, gardenia and grapefruit teas produced in the market.
According to the different characteristics of the fragrant flowers themselves, they can be divided into temperamental flowers and somatic flowers.
Aromatic flowers have fragrance only in the process of opening and no fragrance after drying, jasmine is this kind of flower.
The body flower is still fragrant after drying, roses and osmanthus are such flowers.
Flower tea is sometimes not made with just one type of flower. In the case of jasmine tea alone, there is a difference between pure jasmine manuka and a small amount of white orchid manuka followed by jasmine manuka (the technical term is called white orchid base).
Pure jasmine tea has a purer floral aroma, but if not enough jasmine flowers are used, the floral aroma may not be as strong and fresh. Pure jasmine is also usually more expensive
White orchid base tea has a stronger floral aroma and richer fragrance, but if too much white orchid is used, it tends to look kitschy.
02 Tea in flower tea / is flower tea, not herbal tea /
The flower tea mentioned here is not the same concept as the chrysanthemum tea which has only flowers and no tea. Only flowers without tea is called herbal tea, while flower tea must have tea.
Traditional jasmine tea is made from green tea, which is easy to absorb the fragrance. There are special type of flower tea with special shape in appearance, such as dragon pearl, jade butterfly, silver ring, etc. There are also single buds of silver needle or needle king and Mao Feng.
In terms of the goodness of the tea blanks, the special type of tea blanks belong to the same grade in terms of appearance. Grade type tea, on the other hand, is divided into special grade, grade one to grade five according to its tenderness and quality. But the tea produced by different manufacturers, there are inherent differences in good and bad. That is to say that the tea of one special grade is not necessarily better than the tea of another first grade.
If we talk about the flower tea other than jasmine tea, then the tea blanks can be rich. For example, rose is usually paired with black tea, osmanthus is usually paired with granular green tea and flat green tea, and plum, wax plum, and orchid are paired with green tea baked in the shape of a flower.
03 The process in flower tea / Jasmine tea with or without jasmine flowers? /
There are many kinds of jasmine tea, some people think it is good to drink high crushed, some people are concerned about the cellar, some people think that jasmine tea must have flowers in it to be good, while some people think that jasmine tea without flowers is high class. The most important thing is that you have to be able to get a good idea of what you want to do. It depends on what process is used.
Traditionally, Fuzhou jasmine tea is made using the cellar (pronounced xūn, but the tea industry pronounces yìn, from the Fuzhou dialect pronunciation) flower process, a layer of jasmine flowers a layer of tea cellar. The number of repetitions is the number of times the tea is made. This is how you often hear about the seven or nine cellar flower tea.
The higher the grade of jasmine tea, the less jasmine flowers are left in the tea. The higher the grade of jasmine tea, the less jasmine flowers are left.
A good man-made tea has a strong floral aroma, and the aroma you smell and drink is the same.
Is it true that the more times you make a tea, the better it is? In actual production, it is not necessarily so. If the number of flowers used in each manuring is very small, the more times the tea is manured, the worse the quality of the tea will be, because the tea will gradually lose its freshness during the manuring process, or produce a boring or fermented taste. However, for the same brand, the number of times represents the grade of the product. That is to say, the more the same brand of tea, the higher the grade of the tea, different brands can not be compared.
The flower tea process has been extended to Sichuan, which means that the jasmine flowers that have lost their aroma are sifted out at the end of the manuring process, and then the jasmine flowers that have been removed from the receptacle are scattered and fried together with the tea. So the authentic Sichuan flower tea is with dried flowers, the tea fragrance has the fragrance of flowers and fried dried flowers, such as Bitan Drifting Snow.
There is another kind of blended tea process, which is commonly found in European countries. The tea leaves are not manicured by the flowers, but are directly mixed with the dried flowers. The aroma of blended flower tea is weaker and often the aroma that you smell and the aroma that you drink are separated.
Our daily life common osmanthus oolong, rose black tea and other flower tea, may be man-made, may also be mixed flower tea, to distinguish, mainly by drinking …… Well, it is so simple and plain ……
There is also a common white peach oolong, most of the time neither man-made flower tea nor blended flower tea, but tea with flavoring and white peach fruit grains.
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