Up to now there are six tea systems in China -- green tea, black tea, scented tea, Oolong tea, white tea and pressure tea. Among them there are date tea, ginseng tea, fruit tea,  Lianxin tea, chrysanthemum tea, Babao tea, Jupi tea, Mipao tea, medical tea, butter tea, milk tea and smashed tea of the minority nationalities.
    Green tea is made without being fermented. It is named green tea be-cause the tea soup and tea leaves are green. They are weak and cold, which can climate hotness and promote the secretion of saliva or body fluid. There are many kinds of green tea. A lot of people drink it. Famous green tea an Huangshan Maofeng,  Liuan Guapian,  Nanjing Yuhua,  Dongting Bilu, ochun, West Lake Longjing, Qiqiang, Lushan Yunwu and so on.                                                                                            
    Longjing tea is from Longjing, West Lake, Hangzhou. It is a top-grade green tea. It is recorded that tea was produced in Longjing in the Tang Dy-nasty. In the Qing Dynasty Longjing tea was the favourite one of Emperor Qianlong. It is made of tea shoot. They are green, fragrant, sweet and beauty-ful -- four unique characteristics of Longjing tea. In the past there were mainly four brands of Longjing tea. "shi, " "long, " "yun, " and "hu. " They were the four brands of Longjing tea produced in Shifeng, Longjing, Yunqi and Hupao respectively. Now they are classified into three brands: "shi," "long, " and "mei." "Mei" is the Longjing tea produced in Meijiawu.
    Biluochun is from Dongting, Taihu, Wu County, Jiangsu Province. It is also a top-grade green tea. It is said that there was a Biluo peak on Mountain Dongting 1,300 years ago. Some tea trees grew on it. The farmers often went  there picking them. Once a little girl went there picking tea. She put the rest of the tea into her breast after her basket was full. Unexpectedly the tea sent forth a special sweet fragrance because of her body temperature, so the tea got a name "Xiasharen (meaning 'terrifying' ) fragrance". The tea was so named and became well-known all over the country. Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty renamed it "Biluochun" because the original name sounded rude.
    Black tea is made after being fermented. It is so named because the tea soup is black. It is warm and sweet and beneficial to the masculine. It can re-move the grease of the human body. So many people drink it. The famous black tea are Gongfu tea of Fujian,  Qimen black tea of Anhui and Chuan-hong of Sichuan and so on.
    Qimen black tea is from Qimen and Guichi of Anhui. It takes a lot of time to make this kind of tea so it is also named Qimen Gongfu tea. It is the top-grade black tea. It is recorded that black tea was produced in Qimen in the Tang Dynasty. In 1915 Qimen black tea was awarded the Golden Prize at Panama International Fair. Hence it is exported for sale. It is famous for its sweet fragrance so it is also named "Qimen xiang ( xiang means ' fragrant' ) "
    Scented tea is made from the fumigated fragrant flower. Its growing ar-eas are Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and so forth. The main breeds of it are jasmine tea, yulan tea and zhulan tea. Scented tea was the earliest one in Chinese tea culture. It is recorded that jasmine tea appeared in the Song Dy-nasty. The painter Niyunlin of the Yuan Dynasty invented lotus tea.
Jasmine tea is made from the fumigated jasmine. The famous growing area for it is Fujian. It is the most popular brand of the scented tea.
    Oolong tea is made being half fermented. Originally it grew on the rocks of Wuyi Mountain. So it is also named rock tea. The center of the Oolong tea leaves is green and its edge is red so it is also called "green leaves and red edges." Generally it is named after the tea tree. The main breeds of it are Oo-1ong,  Tieguanyin,  Dancong and Narcissus.  It is the main component of Gongfu tea.
    Tieguanyin is from Anxi, Fujian Province. It is a famous variety of Oo-1ong tea. It is said that a person named Wei in Songlintou Village, Anxi sin-cerely believed in Buddhism. He worshiped Guanyin, godess of mercy, with a cup of green tea every morning. One day he happened to see the tea leaves on the rock glittering. He took it home and planted it in a pot. The tea made from it smelt extremely sweet,  so it was considered to be the gift from Guanyin(goddess of mercy). Its leaves are heavy and it is as black as iron, so it is called Tieguanyin.
    White tea is unnecessary to be fermented, rubbed and fumigated. It is naturally sweet. Its main growing areas are Zhenghe, Songxi, Shuiji of Fujian Province. The main breeds of it are Dabai, Xiaobai and Shuixianbai. The most famous one is " Yinzhengbaihao, " which is more than 1,000 years old.
Pressure tea is made by pressing the mould after the bulk cooking tea is steamed. It is also named tea brick or cake tea because it is like brick or cake. Its main production areas are Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Sichuan and so on. The main breeds of it are Hua brick, black brick, rice brick, green brick and Tuocha .
    Tuocha is a bowl-shaped and compressed mass of tea leaves. It is like the steamed bread of corn so it is named Tuocha. It is classified into Yunnan Tuocha, Puer Tuocha, Sichuan Tuocha and so forth. They are all top-grade pressure tea.