Tea Talk China’s 24 Seasons | Drinking a cup of Chinese green tea at the time of the Mang Season
Editor’s Note: As the year progresses, grass and trees are born. People stand between heaven and earth and live in harmony with nature. Years and years of time, make a cup of seasonal tea, should be four seasons of the five elements of the flow, but also inherited the traditional culture of the way of life. Recently, the red network Xiang tea channel launched a “tea talk twenty-four seasons” series of reports, to take you to understand the seasons about the cultural practices of tea.
When the sun reaches 75 ° of the yellow longitude, the calendar around June 6 each year is the mango season.
The moon order seventy-two wait for the collection of explanation “:” May festival, said the seed of the grain can be planted awned carry on.” It means “the wheat with awns will be harvested soon, and the rice with awns can be planted”.
Mang seed period, the climate is hot and humid, the south often rainstorms, but also ushered in the “clothes do not dry” of the rainy season. For the tea tree, at this time the vast majority of tea producing areas in Hunan has no longer produce fresh and sweet high-quality young leaves, bitter and astringent degree of stronger summer tea began to produce. For tea growers who have finished making spring tea, it is the middle to late stage of black tea production and the early stage of black tea production.
Busy Tea Making at Mangzhao Season
Due to the summer light enhancement, rising temperatures, abundant rainfall, tea leaves grow quickly, bitter and astringent substances prevail, so most of the summer tea has a bitter taste.
Ancient people talked about the season, is the rhythm of life can not be broken, is a way to live in harmony with nature. But tea lovers can not be one day without tea, Hunan tea farmers to study and innovate, hoping to produce a better taste of summer tea.
Taoyuan County in Changde City, Hunan Province, has a long history of tea production, and at this time of year most of the tea farmers in the county are making black tea wool. Liu Huayun, an elderly tea maker in the Wuyunjie Nature Reserve, would run around the deep mountains every day looking for good mangetout tea trees. “A few days ago, I went over to Taoyuan Xi’an Township, and found good old tea trees in the mountains to make old green tea with a stronger aroma, which is considered high mountain organic tea.” Compared to the busy since early spring, Liu Huayun said that after summer, picking six or seven pounds of fresh leaves every day is good, and you can go home to make old green tea. “Old green tea has a strong flavor, and summer is hot and boring for green tea. For me, who only makes mangosteen tea, I have high requirements for tea leaves, and now I am looking for good tea leaves to prepare for next year.”
In the past, when making tea, the old leaves ripened in summer were rarely directly fried to make green tea. Many tea makers used the old leaves to make highly fermented teas, such as black tea and black tea.
As the maturity of tea leaves increases, the content of tea polyphenols, alkaloids, amino acids attenuate, but the tea aroma increases dramatically. How to make summer tea innovatively? Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guzhang County, vice president of the Tea Association, Xiang Gongping research concluded that the use of old tea leaves with very high maturity to make cliff tea, the taste of all the best. “Making cliff tea, despite the heavy degree of greening, the bottom of the leaves and soup color are greenish green, but the fragrance of flowers is strong and charming. When you drink it, it will feel like manna.”
He said, tea production process, spring tea should be pro-tea young leaves, focusing on soup color, retaining the rich nutrients. Summer tea can increase the maturity of the picked tea leaves, reduce bitterness and astringency, but also highlight the aroma. Different teas have different flavors and tastes.
Boiled Tea at the Time of Plum Rain
In ancient times, the plum rainy season was a good time for tea lovers to store rainwater for cooking tea. Food Materia Medica” recorded: ‘plum rain, set the vat to collect water, fried tea is very beautiful, the night does not change color and easy to taste, stored in the bottle, can be long’. Plum water tea tea soup flavor, the old folk used to store the plum season of the day drop water, stay in the tea.
Poem also has the cloud, “cloudy and sunny is the yellow plum, summer fumigation Run green moss. Porcelain urn even filled with water from the sky, cooking tea when the guests first came”.
From the point of view of health, the arrival of mango means that the summer heat of the climate gradually began. There is a proverb that describes this, “the day of the summer solstice, walking to be led; hold to be pulled, pulled to be pushed”. This image expresses the physical and mental laziness of people at this time of the year. Many Chinese medicine practitioners said, mango when the climate began to heat, is more physical consumption of the season, pay attention to replenish water, drink more water.
Drinking black tea is a good choice for thirst quenching. Summer temperature is high, high humidity, easy to sweat, will cause a variety of nutrients within the human body, especially inorganic salts of a large number of consumption. Black tea is rich in vitamins, sodium, potassium, iron, protein and other nutrients, drinking black tea can supplement the loss of vitamins and inorganic salts.
Furthermore, drinking black tea can increase appetite, eliminate food to remove grease and clear the intestinal tract. In summer, it is easy to have no appetite, poor appetite and other phenomena. Nutrients such as alkaloids, cellulose and probiotics in black tea play an important role in gastrointestinal diseases.
Anhua black tea has a long heritage and is well made. In summer, most people drink Por brick tea, one of the main varieties of Anhua black tea. This tea has the quality of lush golden colonies, commonly known as “hair golden flowers”, the more golden flowers grow, on behalf of the Poria tea quality is better. “When you drink black tea, you will feel the coolness of body and mind, and the sensation of relieving summer heat. This is because the black tea tea broth contains tea polyphenols, sugars, amino acids, pectin, vitamins and other trace elements, which react chemically with the saliva in the mouth to moisturize the mouth, so it can play a role in generating fluids and quenching thirst.” Dr. Lin Haiyan, the research team of Liu Zhonghua from Hunan Agricultural University, introduced.
Tips How to preserve tea during the rainy season?
During the rainy season, the air humidity is high (over 80%), the temperature is high, and clothing is prone to mold, so some people refer to the rainy season as the harmonic “moldy rain”. Many tea lovers said that the rainy season, the newly purchased tea is easy to become damp. In this regard, the reporter interviewed senior tea lovers, tea channel tasting tea chief tasting officer Zhang Zhiying, he provided readers with their own storage tea tips.
“After the air humidity, tea is very easy to mold. Rescue will also have little effect. Preventing tea from becoming moldy can be done from the storage space, storage methods.”
Space: the best place to store tea is not to choose the first floor, try to choose more than 2-3 floors, and with the wall and the ground to maintain a certain distance (commonly known as “away from the ground away from the wall”).
Storage method: airtight and ventilated
For green tea, seal it and put it in the refrigerator (lime can also be used for storage), 5℃-8℃ is suitable. During the rainy season, black tea is also recommended to be refrigerated, and the temperature can be slightly higher by a few degrees. Tea that is not stored in the refrigerator must be sealed more tightly. Seal the inner film bag and put it inside a cardboard box. Try not to open it during the rainy season.
Black tea is normally kept as unsealed as possible, with as much contact with the air as possible, can have a better transformation process. However, during the rainy season, it is best to keep it airtight, and then remove the outer seal after the rainy season.
Views: 2
Leave a Reply