丨This article was originally created by Xiao Chen Chashi
丨First published in the headline: Xiao Chen Tea Affair
丨Author: Village Gu Chen
《1》
Time is an interesting process because you never know how it will change you.
For example, food you once didn't like, books you didn't like, people you didn't like, tea you didn't like, and then one day, you liked it.
But at the same time, time is like a tide and you can lose something.
What you have, you have in the past.
Time records what happens in every frame and what you have in each frame.
This statement is a bit abstract, like "one cannot step into the same river twice".
Back to the point.
Today's topic is actually from a tea friend in the background.
He has been leaving us messages tirelessly for more than a year.
It is estimated that there are nearly 10,000 words left in total, and this perseverance impressed the village aunt Chen, which is longer than many of my articles.
Unexpectedly, I actually lost in the number of words, and the afterlife is terrible.
So it was decided to write an article dedicated to answering his question, thanks to the material he provided for a long time.
His message, in addition to recording his tea drinking feelings, also mentioned:
"The originally fragrant white tea, after the humidity is too high, the fragrance is gone, how to titian?"
To be honest, this question seems simple, but it is actually difficult to answer.
In three words, it is not clear.
《2》
Why does the originally fragrant white tea suddenly lose its fragrance?
In fact, tea lovers have found that the aroma change of tea is related to dryness.
Qualified white tea, according to the provisions in the national standard, the water content must be less than 8.5%.
This is the minimum standard, a red line.
Some tea makers who have higher requirements for themselves will make the finished product of white tea drier and more conducive to long-term storage.
Below 7%, or below 5%, or even lower, close to the dryness of export-grade white tea, less than 3%.
Because white tea with low water content can withstand long-term storage, it will not deteriorate or taste.
Besides, the processing of white tea is very simple, advocating pure nature and original ecology.
Mainly withering and drying, the essence is to expel the excess water in the fresh leaves, take away the bad substances, and leave the good substances.
While preserving the nutrients and flavor of white tea as much as possible, dry the tea leaves.
The white tea born in this way can be dry and fragrant, refreshing and rich.
However, white tea is a master of absorption, and it happens that the air contains a lot of moisture.
If you do not pay attention to sealing and let white tea absorb the water vapor from the outside world, then, with the increase of moisture content, the internal matter of white tea will be eroded by moisture day by day.
The nutrients are damaged and the positive transformation stops.
At a specific temperature and humidity, tea begins to over-ferment and undergo negative transformation, resulting in some bad substances.
At the same time, the originally rich aromatic substances, the varied fragrance, floral fragrance, herbal fragrance, lotus leaf fragrance, etc., are all covered by miscellaneous and strange smells.
The most typical example is a series of unrefreshing smells such as chocolate, sourness, smoke, warehouse, stuffiness, water, musty and so on in white tea.
This means that the white tea is destroyed.
As soon as the boiling water is flushed, all kinds of strange smells will clearly appear on the incense, and naturally it will not be fragrant.
With the heat, the air soars upward, and the nose is extremely uncomfortable, and it does not have the fresh and mellow fragrance that white tea should have.
《3》
Before drinking white tea, should you mention it?
Obviously, white tea of normal quality does not need to be titian.
First of all, what is "Titian"?
I once heard a tea friend say that because of her interest, she signed up for a tea master training course.
The teacher taught her that before drinking tea, she could steam the tea leaves in advance and roast them according to the specific situation, this step is called "Titian".
The tea friend was a little white at the time and wondered about this.
Moreover, drinking tea in daily life, it seems that no one Titian has been seen.
His teacher said that it was because others did not understand, and only senior old tea customers knew that the tea brewed after Titian was more delicious.
At that time, the tea friend had been frightened by the teacher's serious expression and was convinced.
Until later, in the process of drinking tea with friends, I wanted to do Titian, but was stopped.
Everyone said that this tea is of good quality and fragrant, and there is no need to mention it, and only bad tea should be titian.
At this time, it suddenly dawned on me.
It is undeniable that Titian is indeed a widespread statement in tea circles.
For example, village aunt Chen went to different tea-producing areas and heard Titian in different tea farmers' homes.
For example, after picking tea in a certain spring tea season, he kept urging Lao S to deliver the goods, and he also told me that the incense would be sent out again.
For another example, Wuyishan Huge said that he was drinking rock tea that had just been raised.
In the case of tea farmers, titian refers to the need to dry the finished tea again before shipment after a period of storage for fear of rising water content.
By the way, drive out the moisture that may be generated in the tea leaves.
But there is also a kind of titian, which is operated by tea drinkers themselves.
Take a stove, warm it in advance, put the tea leaves on it, bake it, and under the action of high temperature, the aroma of tea will come out.
However, generally only tea with a relatively high water content needs to steam off the excess water.
What's more, for white tea, which likes to be dry and afraid of wet, if it is already damp, even if it is self-high temperature titian, it will not help.
Because where we can't see, the endoplasm has changed dramatically.
Although the moisture is discharged, the quality is still not satisfactory.
《4》
A white tea, from birth to aging, has to pass through the hands of many people.
Tea picking, tea making, tea storage, and when the tea leaves are transferred from the tea farmer to the customer, its quality is no longer the responsibility of the seller.
This responsibility shifts to the buyer.
Of course, there are some irresponsible sellers who sell white tea with excessive water content.
They did not tell the tea customers in advance that this batch of white tea should be drunk quickly, and they quickly drank it while the tea had not yet been further damp.
Therefore, the owner will subconsciously feel that white tea can be older and more fragrant, and the more valuable it is.
When I went to drink it three or five months later, I found that the aroma, taste, and taste had all changed.
Miraculously, those white teas with high water content or simply no drying tasted thick and full when they were first bought.
Because of the high water content, the content of the contained substances is also high.
On the contrary, compared with the white tea that has been dried, it is also necessary to gather the aroma and internal quality of the white tea, and the performance is more outstanding.
However, this is only temporary.
After half a year, all the aroma is gone, leaving only a smell of water.
This means that everyone who buys white tea must pay attention to the water content, otherwise the white tea in hand, even if it is stored carefully, will eventually be empty.
If you buy white tea with qualified quality and water content, you need to carefully preserve it.
Simply put, there are five keys, sealed, dry, protected from light, cool and odor-free.
Usually, when everyone receives the goods, the white tea is sealed with a three-layer packaging method.
One layer of aluminum bags, one layer of food-grade plastic bags, and one layer of thick corrugated boxes form three layers of protection.
After that, the tea leaves can be quietly aged in cardboard boxes, transforming into richer and more wonderful internal quality.
When the time is ripe, open the box to drink, only to feel that the aroma is rich and the soup is mellow.
Titian, it's redundant.
《5》
Titian is not the normal process of drinking white tea.
Especially the tea with excellent quality and proper storage is itself fragrant, so why mention it?
Only tea with defective quality and excessive water content needs to make up for it, and use high temperature to evaporate water vapor.
Beautiful name: Titian.
In fact, if you don't mention the fragrance, the tea soup will be even worse.
The aroma is weak and the taste is shallow.
However, it is too late.
It is better to seriously learn the skills of tea selection, tea buying, and storing tea, and truly have an old white tea with excellent quality in the future.
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Xiao Chen Tea Village Gu Chen, columnist, the chief writer of the original innovative media "Xiao Chen Tea Affairs" in the tea industry, has published the white tea monograph "White Tea Tasting Handbook", and has written more than 4,000 original articles from 2016 to 2020.