Chinese Green Tea January 2016
EDITOR'S NOTE
Hello fellow tea lovers, Winter has certainly made its presence known here in New Jersey. Endless cups of tea were my saving grace when we got buried under nearly three feet of snow. I'm sure that many of you are experiencing the same. My journey with the leaf is constantly evolving and this journal has been an extraordinary conduit for that. This is the first issue of the new year and I'm so excited to share even more articles and information with you all. There are now more than 700 subscribers receiving each issue. How crazy is that? The next issue in April will focus on Darjeeling. Submissions are usually from tea companies but I want to make sure you all know that articles from everyone are welcome. As always, I'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, feedback and ideas. What would you like to see in the next issues? Please feel free to shoot me an email at nicole@teaformeplease.com. My inbox is always open! Nicole
Green tea is the one variety of tea that people consistently tell me that they don't like. I always see posts on Reddit, Quora and other websites with similar complaints. Well, I'm here to tell you that green tea is actually pretty awesome! If your cup turned out less than stellar, it's most likely because of one of these four reasons. 1. Your water is too hot. This one is the most likely culprit. Unlike black tea or oolong, most green teas cannot tolerate boiling water. Tea contains polyphenols called tannins (the same substance that gives you a dry mouth-feel in red wine). Hotter water will release more tannins from your green tea, resulting in a bitter and unpleasant cup of tea. Start with your tea vendor's recommendations and adjust to taste from there. Most green teas will fall within the 160-180째F range. 2. You brewed it for too long. Just as with water that is too hot, brewing your tea for too long will make for a poor end result. Green tea, especially a high quality one, has a very subtle taste. I've seen a lot tea drinkers brew their tea for a very long time because they want it to be "stronger". In truth, this only extracts additional bitterness and won't really improve the taste in any way. Every tea is a bit different but most green teas should be steeped for no longer than 1 to 3 minutes. Green tea can offer a lot of complexity but your palate may have a hard time discerning that if you are used things like very strong black tea, spicy foods or coffee. Give it time and your patience will be rewarded! 3. The tea is old. Tea very rarely spoils but the taste can and will degrade over time. This is particularly true of green tea. The greener the tea, the shorter the shelf life. I recommend consuming green tea within a year of harvest whenever possible. Tea bags will degrade faster for several reasons. Firstly, you will be hard pressed to find a tea bag that tells you when the tea was harvested. Your supermarket more than likely has last year's tea on its shelf. CTC (Cut, Tear, Curl) style tea will also oxidize more quickly because there is more surface area exposed to the air. 4. It's just bad tea. It's also very possible that the tea you have is just simply a bad tea. This occurs often with flavored teas, especially those bought from the big chain stores. Artificial flavor can do some funky things when added to hot water. To remedy this, look for a retailer who really knows what they are doing. If they can't tell you where it is from (details like region and approximate harvest time, not just country), then you probably don't want to drink it. If you don't have a reliable local shop, I highly recommend Teavivre for Chinese green teas and Yunomi for Japanese green teas.
Tea In The 21st Century by Eric Scott Tea, especially Chinese tea, is often portrayed as a thing from an idyllic past, a time of emperors and the old Tea Horse Road. Tea aficionados are inundated with images of rustic looking people in rustic locales picking and processing tea in a rustic way. While tea has deep roots in the past, it is also very actively moving into the future. Last summer I had an opportunity to glimpse the future of Chinese tea as a visiting researcher at the Tea Research Institute in Hangzhou, the home of Longjing, or Dragonwell, tea. The Tea Research Institute (TRI) is a branch of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) dedicated to improving tea production in a variety of ways. TRI has departments focusing on processing, tasting and evaluation, pest control, breeding, plant nutrition, and more. This facility has state of the art analytical instruments and and they publish scientific papers in excellent international journals and are accredited to grant PhD's and masters degrees. I saw first hand that tea is definitely not just a thing of the past. At TRI, researchers are acutely aware of the issues surrounding the environmental impact of tea production. In a conversation with Dr. Wenyan Han, a professor at TRI, I learned that over fertilization is a big issue for Longjing tea. Because it fetches such a high price on the market, any small improvement in yield nets farmers large sums of money, so they are willing to spend extra on fertilizer inputs and push their tea plants to get the maximum yield they can. The soil in Hangzhou is naturally very acidic, but is made even more so by overfertilization, reaching as low as pH 3 in some places (stomach acid is pH 2). This is a problem because acidic soil doesn’t hold on to nutrients as tightly, and when it rains, which it does quite often in Hangzhou, the excess fertilizer that hasn’t been absorbed into the tea roots is leeched into groundwater or runs off into rivers where it has the potential to cause serious environmental issues (read up on the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico for an extreme example). However, there is some evidence that more fertilizer isn’t necessarily better for the quality of Longjing tea. Adding excess nitrogen fertilizer increases yield, but potentially at a cost to flavor. According to a 2007 study from professor Ruan and others at TRI, high levels of nitrogen increased the concentration of a bitter tasting amino acid, arginine. Hopefully this will provide some incentive for Longjing farmers to be more conscious when applying nitrogen to their fields.
One of the greatest assets at TRI, and my favorite place to wander and think about tea, is the germplasm garden. A germplasm is a living collection of different varieties of a plant kept for the purpose of preserving the diversity of genes in a species. Here you can see rows and rows of tea cultivars collected from all over China—TRI has over 2000 cultivars in total. Seen sidebyside, the diversity of leaf shapes, colors, and growth forms that tea plants can take is astounding! One way researchers use these plants is for breeding. Across the street, a tea farm proudly demonstrates a field of Longjing #43 clones, a cultivar developed by TRI's breeding program. The germplasm garden also serves as a testing ground for different cultivars to figure out if they are adapted to that particular region of China and therefore suitable for large scale planting. Walking through the garden, you can easily see which cultivars are doing well and which ones are not —one row might have leaves that are shriveled and covered with black mildew while the row right next to it might be healthy and green looking.
Me in front of the entrance to TRI
Me standing in part of the germplasm garden
an example of two really different looking cultivars
This cultivar shows lots of leafhopper damage while the ones to the left and right are healthy
A really yellowleaved cultivar in the foreground (it might be anji bai cha, but i'm not sure)
A leaf from a large leaved cultivar next to a branch from one of the smallest leaved cultivars I found.
I'll be returning to TRI this spring to work on my graduate research on how insect pests and climate change might affect tea quality. To read more about the collaborative project that I'm a part of, check out our website at http://ww.teaclimate.org. If you have any questions about tea you want me to pass on to some of the smartest tea scientists in China, find me on Twitter (@aariqscott) and ask away! I'll do my best to get answers to your questions!
Brewing Chinese Top Grade Dragon Well Green Tea Contributed by Teavivre Beautiful countryside and exquisite tea plantations can be viewed in West Lake Hangzhou, the home of the famous green tea named Dragon Well Green Tea, a Chinese green tea with delicious flavor and aroma and a history of being grown in this area for thousands of years.
What Does Dry Dragon Well Tea Look Like? The dry leaves of Dragon Well Green tea have a smooth, flat and spearlike appearance. And the higher grade Dragon Well is more beautiful. Dragon Well Green tea has a refreshing taste, with a fresh and mellow fragrance. The tea liquid is lovely pale bright greenishgold color. To truly enjoy your Dragon Well Green tea, you’d better choose either a nice glass cup or a gaiwan to brew your tea, then you can see the beauty of the leaves as they dance and unfurl in the water at the same of enjoy the taste and aroma.
Brewing Dragon Well Green Tea with Glass Preparation: Glass, tea holder, fair cup, cups, filter, and tea ceremony set (tea scoop, tea tweezer, tea pin, tea spoon, tea funnel and tea container).
Step 1. Take tea: Use a tea scoop to take 2 grams Dragon Well Green Tea from your tea tin (or bag), then put tea into tea holder. Step 2. Prewarm Glass: Pour some water in the glass cup to clean, sterilize and prewarm it as well as the tea cups, and fair cup.
Step 3. Cast the tea: Firstly, fill about 1/3 water in, and then add dry tea leaves. Gently shake the glass, and then pour about 70% cup of water. During this process, you can see the dance of the leaves as they unfurl and swirl around in the water. (The glass in the picture is 385ml, we pour 90ml water in first, and then add 180 ml water in after put the tea in). Note: the dragon well green tea we used is tender, so we’d suggest putting the tea in some water, and then filling more water.
Step 4: Brewing time: You can pour out the tea liquid in the fair after about 3 minutes and serve the tea in the tea cups. If you drink alone, then you don’t need to use fair cup.
Usually the Dragon Well Green Tea can be brewed 23 times in this method. Every time the aroma and the taste are a little bit different. Tips: 1. Dragon Well green tea is a tender and lightly fermented tea, it is not suitable for using boiling hot water. You can let the boiled water cool down for several minutes, and then pour it in the cup. The proper temperature is 80°C 85°C( 176℉ to 185°F). 2.If you prefer strong taste, you may brew tea more than 3 minutes. Or add more than 2 grams tea leaves in. 3. Please leave about 1/3 tea liquid in the glass before you refill the water. In this way, your second steep will be better.
Brewing Dragon Well Green Tea with Gaiwan Step 1 : Use a tea scoop to take 2 grams Dragon Well Green Tea from your tea tin (or bag), then put tea into tea holder. And show the tea holder to your guests to appreciate the beautiful appearance of tea leaves. Step 2. Pour some water in the glass cup to clean, sterilize and prewarm it as well as the tea cups, and fair cup.
The fair cup is used to hold the wellbrewed tea, then to pour the tea liquid into each cup with equal amounts into each guests cup, to represent that everyone is equally respected.
Step 3. (optional) Pour some water on the Green tea, and then discard the liquid in about 23 seconds. This is called wash the tea. Note: For the high grade green tea or organic tea, you don’t need to wash the tea. Step 4. Put the Dragon Well Green Tea in Gaiwan, and pour 176℉ warm water (about 1/3 of the Gaiwan) then turn it around several times in order to wet all of the Dragon Well green tea in the cup completely. This will draw the flavor out of the tea so you can smell and taste its freshness!
Step 5. Flush in hot water afterward to fill your Gaiwan and allow the leaves to completely unfurl. Note: if the green tea is high grade, you don’t need to cover your Gaiwan.
Step 6. Brew the tea for about 20 seconds and pour out the liquid to your fair cup. Then share it with your friends.
After finished the first steep, refill the warm water, and extend the brewing tea 1020 seconds for every later steeps. Usually the Dragon Well Green Tea can be brewed for about 34 times.
TeaVivre is a group of tea lovers and aficionados from China, Canada and France, who all share a passion for drinking great tea and appreciate the healthy life style it brings. With all of us living in China, we frequently travel through the country visiting China's tea plantations so we can track down only truly exceptional teas. As a result we are able to bring to you – and us – the absolute highest quality Chinese teas that are, wherever possible, 100% organically grown and produced. You can find out more at http://ww.teavivre.com.
LEGENDS OF THE LE A F BI LUO CHUN B i Luo Chuns original name Xia Sha Ren Xiang '
translates to scary fragrance. Legend has it that tea pickers ran out of room their baskets so placed tea leaves between their breasts. Body heat caused a surprising aroma to be released from the leaves. It was later renamed green snail spring by the Kangxi Emperor.
TAIPING HOUKUI Taiping Houkui is an unusual
green tea that is produced at the foot of Huang Shan in Taiping County. The name is most often translated as peaceful monkey leader. You might ask yourself, what does that have to do with tea? A local legend holds that the monkey king fell ill and died after losing his son. A farmer discovered his body and carefully buried it. Tea trees grew from this spot the next year and the farmer harvested the leaves, making them into the distinctive blade-like shape.
DRAGONWELL T here several legends that surround this
famous tea. In a city by the same name, there is a well that was said to be inhabited by a dragon. The local people would pray to it for rain when there is a drought. I have heard from several people who have visited the well that after rain, the lighter rainwater floats on top of the dense well water creating a rippling effect. It is this curious phenomenon that is often attributed as the source of the legend.
Another story tells of Emperor Qianlong visiting a temple and watching the ladies picking tea. He enjoyed it so much that he decided to give it a try. While he was picking the tea he received a message that his mother was ill. In his haste to leave he shoved the leaves into his sleeve. When the Emperor visited his mother, she noticed the smell of the leaves and he had it brewed for her. It is said that the distinctive flat shape of Longjing is designed to mimic those leaves.