Friends who have just come into contact with tea, many people have a half-understanding of the classification of tea, for example, the most common misunderstanding is that many people will think that this green tea grows on the green tea tree, black tea grows on the black tea tree, and oolong grows on the oolong tea tree. The actual situation is that the fresh leaves picked from any tea tree can be used to make green tea, black tea, oolong tea, black tea, white tea and yellow tea through different processing processes.
For example, it is often used to make West Lake Longjing (green tea) and Jiuqu red plum (black tea), and their raw materials can be derived from a mother compatriot, that is, Longjing No. 43. You don't think that the fresh leaves of this Longjing No. 43 species can only make Longjing, it can also be made into black tea, but the tea fresh leaves before the valley rain are often used to fry the West Lake Longjing, and the raw materials used in the Jiuqu red plum are not as fine as the green tea.
The "six major tea categories" that are popular in the tea industry today originate from the article "Theory and Practice of Tea Classification" in 1979, which systematically divides tea into six major tea categories according to different processing techniques or sensory evaluations. At this point, the classification of the six major types of tea has basically taken shape.
Tea lovers who are just getting started, the classification of the six major types of tea can be understood simply. That is, tea leaves are processed according to different processes, thus forming different degrees of oxidative fermentation. That is, green tea is not fermented, yellow tea is lightly fermented, white tea is micro-fermented, green tea (oolong tea) is semi-fermented, black tea is fully fermented, and black tea is post-fermented.
The basic distinction of the six major types of tea, the processing technology is the cause, and the degree of oxidative fermentation is the fruit. Understanding the cause and effect, we also grasp the key to distinguishing the six major types of tea.
In fact, what is said above is just a simple way to distinguish between beginners. In practice, the classification of tea leaves cannot be done one size fits all. For example, in the actual production of green tea is also slightly fermented. And black tea, not to mention the so-called 100% full fermentation, generally 80% fermentation is more, in recent years, in order to cater to market tastes, some black tea fermentation even only achieved 60% fermentation.
On June 1, 2018, the national standard "Tea Chemical Classification Method" was officially implemented. The standard introduces the method of determining the six major tea types step by step: "By detecting the content of the main chemical components in the six major tea categories, using statistical analysis methods to screen out the characteristic component factors that can represent different tea types, using the characteristic component factors combined with the discriminant model to classify the tea samples, and the identification of unknown tea samples is one of the green tea, black tea, oolong tea (green tea), white tea, yellow tea and black tea, which is an innovative attempt of the national standard in the taxonomy of traditional basic tea from processing technology or sensory evaluation." ”
After understanding the classification of the six major types of tea, it can be seen that the classification of tea leaves is closely linked to tea varieties, processing technology, etc.
Someone asked, then since the same kind of tea plant raw materials, according to different processing methods can be used to make six major types of tea. So why is Yunnan large-leaf seed sunning green hair tea mostly used to make Pu'er, rather than doing whatever you want, making green tea, black tea, yellow tea, white tea, black tea?
Behind this, we must take into account the suitability of tea plants. After long-term practice and continuous attempts to summarize, tea people have actually explored which or which of the six major teas under a certain ecological environment is more suitable for making a certain kind of tea. Orange sheng huainan is orange, and tangerine sheng huaibei is citrus, which is the truth. Considering the adaptability of tea plants, many well-known green tea, black tea and other products have specific tea variety regulations.
In summary, choosing a good tea is not as simple as just recognizing a tea name! The tea leaves called green tea or black tea, because of the different origins, different tea varieties, different processing techniques, etc., of course, its taste can not be the same, which is very normal.