Tea drinking friends know that there are six categories of tea: green tea, black tea, yellow tea, green tea, white tea, black tea, all kinds of tea color is not the same, then do you know how this different color comes from?
In fact, the different colors of various types of tea are mainly affected by the pigments in the tea.
The pigments in tea can be divided into fat-soluble pigments and water-soluble pigments.
Fat-soluble pigments are insoluble in water and mainly include chlorophyll and carotenoids, which are important factors in the formation of dry tea and leaf bottom color.
For example, chlorophyll a in the chlorophyll class is dark green, chlorophyll b is yellow-green, lutein is yellow, and carotenoids are orange-red.
Water-soluble pigments are water-soluble pigments, so they have an effect on the color of the tea soup. For example, anthocyanins are yellow, anthocyanins are reddish-purple, and theaflavins, thearubicins, and theaflamins produced during processing.
So, how do they constitute the colors of the six major tea categories?
green tea
Green tea is basically a clear soup green leaf, and its dry tea color is mainly affected by the ratio of chlorophyll a and b.
For fresh bud leaves, the content of chlorophyll b is higher, so the dry tea and the leaf bottom are mostly tender yellow or tender green; while the chlorophyll a content in relatively old fresh leaves is higher than that of chlorophyll b, so dry tea is mostly dark green.
The tea soup of green tea is mostly yellow-green, which is mainly determined by anthocyanins, in addition, it will also be affected by the small amount of chlorophyll decomposition products in the tea soup.
black tea
During the processing of black tea, chlorophyll is destroyed in large quantities, coupled with the effect of magnesium removal, dry tea is black brown. The leaf bottom is affected by the precipitate produced by the combination of thearubicin and the alkaline protein, and is often red.
The tea soup of black tea is mainly influenced by theaflavin and thearubicin, and is golden yellow or orange-red. Theaflavins determine the yellow or orange color in the tea soup, and also affect the brightness of the tea soup. Thearubicin, on the other hand, constitutes the red or orange-red color in the tea soup.
Yellow tea
Yellow tea, basically yellow leaf yellow soup. The color of yellow tea dried tea and leaf bottom is mainly determined by orange-red carotene and yellow lutein.
In the process of yellow tea, chlorophyll is destroyed due to heating, the green pigment is greatly reduced, and the yellow color is more prominent, which is the main reason why yellow tea appears yellow.
white tea
The color of white tea is silver white gray green, mainly fresh leaves full of pekoe, when withering chlorophyll occurs oxidative degradation, gradually turned into dark green, coupled with pekoe background, thus showing a silvery white, gray-green color.
White tea tea soup is mostly apricot yellow, which is the joint action of anthocyanins and trace amounts of theaflavins and thearubigins formed by the oxidation of polyphenols in the middle and late stages of withering.
Green tea
The color of green tea is required to be sandy green and oily, and the bottom of the leaf has green leaf red trim. This is because the new shoots of the new shoots are picked, the chlorophyll content is high, the color is dark, and the chlorophyll and magnesium chlorophyll are partially degraded during processing, forming a small amount of polyphenol oxides, so the formation of green leaf red flange.
The soup color of green tea varies depending on the degree of fermentation.
The lightly fermented soup is light and green in color, which is influenced by a small amount of chlorophyll decomposition products as well as anthocyanin;
The medium-fermented soup color is orange-yellow and bright, mainly influenced by theaflavins, supplemented by thearubicin and anthoclavins;
The color of the heavily fermented soup is reddish and dark, mainly due to the accumulation of thearubicin and theafbulamin.
Black tea
Black tea raw materials are coarse and old, dry tea in the wo dui process color from green to brown, which is mainly due to the destruction of chlorophyll in wo dui, coupled with the influence of theaflavin, thearubicin and theaflavin produced during processing, the leaf color is yellow-brown.
Black tea tea soup is more brown and dark, which is caused by a large amount of theaflavin produced in the wo pile process, of course, there are orange yellow tea soups, which are mainly caused by theaflavins.
Pu-erh tea
Pu'er tea should belong to black tea in terms of classification, but its raw tea processing technology is very different from black tea, so now more and more people are willing to list Pu'er tea as a separate category.
The soup color of Pu'er raw tea varies with different years, which is mainly determined by the proportion of anthocyanins and theaflavins, thearubicins and theaflavins. With the increase of raw tea years, the trend of raw tea soup color gradually changed from green yellow, yellow, orange yellow, orange red to red.