The Chinese tea

Chinese tea culture is the crystallization of Chinese people’s tradition and custom of drinking tea combined with the development of their technique of processing tea leaves to produce the final product. Chinese tea is a shrub ( Thea sinensis ) which has fragrant white flowers and evergreen leaves.

Poets and writers appeared who extolled the virtues of Chinese tea and described the delightful effects of drinking tea one cup after another. Ahead of them, ancient linguists had taken great pains to create five hieroglyphs all meaning the same thing, which was tea, each with a different pronunciation and some slight difference in connotation.

There are 18 regions in which Chinese tea is grown. The most important regions are Zhejiang, Hunan, Sichuan, Fujian, and Anhui. China’s “first crop” teas are plucked from mid-April to mid-May. This harvest is thought to give the fines quality tea and produce over 50 percent of annual production. The second crop is picked in early summer and a third autumn crop is harvested in some areas.

The Oolong tea

Oolong tea generally means semi oxidized tea. There are a variety of oolong teas produced on the island, such as oolong tea, pouchong tea, jinxuan oolong tea, cuiyu oolong tea, sijichun oolong tea, tikuanyin tea and baihao oolong tea. Each of them has a distinctive taste and fragrance.

Oolong tea history began within the lands of China, mainly the vicinity of Mount Wu Yi from the Fujian Province sometime during the Qing Dynasty. One Chinese tea history tale says it was developed by Tea Masters in homage to their translation of Black Dragon Tea, Oolong, which is a traditional Chinese symbol of good fortune.

The luxurious varieties of Oolong tea include Wuyi Rock Tea, Taiwan Oolong and Tieguanyin tea, etc. Tieguanyin produced in Fujian tastes rich in flavor and smells aromatic and fragrant.

There are 5 main categories of Chinese tea:

- Green tea
- Black tea
- Oolong tea
- Scented tea
- Compressed tea

The Oolong tea faq

What is Oolong Tea?

Although Oolong tea (also referred to as “Wu Yi tea” or “Wu Long tea”) is widely consumed in the Far East, it still has a mysterious aura to it here in America.

Oolong Tea
This air of mystery is encouraged (and capitalized on) by marketing companies who constantly change the tea’s name to make it seem more like an ancient Chinese secret for weight loss. The simple truth is that the tea isn’t much of a secret, and (since it originated about 400 years ago) it’s not particularly ancient either.
Oolong, Wu Long, & Wu Yi Tea…What’s the Difference?

Oolong tea has several different names. It’s often referred to as “WuLong” or “Wu Long” tea, and, fairly recently, “Wu Yi” tea. However, even though they have different names, every one of these teas are harvested, prepared, and rolled the Oolong way.
Wu Yi Mountains

Originally, the different names were the result of an honest translation error. This happened because there are several different methods of translating Chinese to English. Using one of the methods the pronunciation of the first character is “Oo”, but with the other method the first sound is “Wu”. Therefore the name of the tea is either “Oolong” or “WuLong” depending on the method of translation.

Does Oolong tea really help aid in weight loss?

Yes! Combined with diet and exercise, Oolong tea can be an excellent weight loss aid. It increases the metabolism while blocking fat absorption to help you shed those extra pounds.

Green tea is a domain, under which you get a number of sub groups. The variants of green tea have different names and the usage and properties also differ from each other, though fundamentally they are the same. Apart from Chinese tea, there are other countries which produce green tea. Japan is the second biggest producer of green tea in the world. Japanese green tea also comes in many varieties, which are unique in taste and means, by which they are produced.

The gradation of tea is done based on the quality and the different parts of the plant that are used to make the tea. The prices vary due to these simple reasons of packaging and cutting. The finer leaves will force you to cough up more bucks for your tea, compared to the coarser ones.

1. The Yame region of Japan produces the finest quality of green tea, which is available in the market. It is expensive and finer than the rest of the variants.
2. Bancha or the common tea is the most widely cultivated variant of green tea. It is harvested from the summer to the autumn months. The entire leaf is not used, but only a few unnecessary twigs are used to make the tea.
3. Genmaicha or brown rice tea is another variant of green tea. It is a mixture of brown rice and tea, along with artificial coloration. With the use of certain herbs, the overall appearance of the tea leaves is improved.
4. Gyokuro is the finest quality of green tea and the finesse is achieved due to the manner of cultivation. The color is ale green and the caffeine content is also pretty high in this variant of green tea.
5. Roasted tea is made by roasting the leaves over a charcoal oven. This process imparts a special taste to the tea once the infusion is prepared from it.
6. Covered tea is cultivated in the shade and contact with direct sunlight is prevented in order to protect the leaves. They are generally delicate in nature and cannot withstand climatic extremes.
7. Japanese tea is characteristically bitter in taste and most of the variants of Japanese green tea are bitter to taste. There are exceptions to this too like the pan fired tea which is not bitter due to the brewing process.

Apart from these there is the rubbed green tea and the roasted barley tea which are unique in its own way.