Tea Varieties – Sequel І

The Chinese people originally chewed fresh tea leaves to prepare tea for drinking. Later, they boiled them in water. This was followed by steaming and compacting the leaves into tea cakes. Finally, the pan-frying method was adopted.

Tea is generally divided into two groups, according to Bthe processing method and quality: basic tea and reprocessed tea.

There are six types of basic tea -- green tea, red tea,oolong tea (also called by the Chinese "qing cha," or green tea, because of its greenish-brown color), yellow tea, white tea and black tea.

Green Tea

Green tea is the dominant variety in China, being produced in 19 tea-growing provinces and autonomous regions. China supplies 70 percent of the green tea traded on world markets.

Characterized by "clear liquid and green leaves," green tea is made through a procedure including shaqing (meaning "killing the green") in which the newly picked leaves are heated to a high temperature for a short time to kill the oxidizing enzymes, kneading and rolling (so as to squeeze out extra moisture and release the flavor enzymes from the leaves), and finally drying out. There are four ways of doing this -- pan-frying, roasting, sun-drying and steaming.

Pan-fried green tea:

Making for a large part of China's green tea product,the tea is made going through a course involving shaqing, kneading and rolling, and pan-frying to get the leaves dry.By shape it can be defined as long pan-fried green tea, round pan-fried green tea, and flat pan-fried green tea.