Before a tea friend bought a bucket of bamboo tube tea, I heard a friend say that the tea is older, it is 10 years old raw tea. Looking at the appearance of the bamboo tube, it is still very new, and there are no insect eyes on the surface. As a result, tea lovers expressed doubts about the year of bamboo tube tea, and began to question whether the tea they bought was real bamboo tube tea.
The quality of a tea must be composed of multiple factors, and the degree of novelty and oldness of the appearance of bamboo tube tea alone can only be conclusive and unscientific. In essence, bamboo tube tea still belongs to a category of Pu'er tea. Therefore, its quality screening can be judged according to the five-factor evaluation method of Pu'er tea.
Maybe you are also extremely confused about such a problem, do not know how to distinguish the quality of bamboo tea, then I will teach you a few methods:
1. Look at its shape
First, see if the appearance of the bamboo tube is shiny and complete? Is there a phenomenon of insect moths? Preliminary determination of whether the storage complies with the basic specifications. Bamboo tube tea with a better storage environment, even if it is stored for a long time, does not necessarily have the phenomenon of insect moths on the surface of the bamboo tube.
Because bamboo tube tea belongs to a kind of tightly pressed tea made of Pu'er tea hair tea, pressed tightly, as long as you pay attention to the tea pry technique when prying tea, the resulting tea must be in pieces, in the shape of a tightly knotted small round cake, and the cord is more complete. It should be noted that we cannot judge the pu'er tea vintage based on the degree of newness and oldness of the bamboo tube.
Bamboo tube tea is divided into many types, such as bamboo tube tea in some areas, its bamboo tube is only used as a tea storage tool, which may appear in the opening tea friends said that the bamboo tube is new, and the tea inside is old.
Another kind of bamboo tube tea, its production process is exquisite, the bamboo used to make bamboo tubes is also different, need to be made with a fresh fragrant bamboo called golden bamboo or sweet bamboo.
In the production process, while putting the prepared loose tea into the bamboo tube, and then putting it on the fire to roast, so that the aroma of the bamboo can be integrated into the tea leaves, and then the tea and bamboo aromas are integrated with each other, so that the aroma of the bamboo tube tea is maximized. At the same time, the mode of "many times a small amount" is adopted, and the bamboo tube tea is roasted while filling and pressing tightly, which is also more conducive to the later transformation of tea.
The reason why the latter is called the authentic bamboo tube tea is also for this reason. Although the former is not roasted, it does not mean that it is a fake bamboo tea. Because the roasted bamboo tube tea, it is also necessary to cut the carbonized part of the charred bamboo tube shell with a knife to ensure the beauty of the shape of the bamboo tube tea, and the former bamboo tube is newer, and it is not impossible.
At the above point, whether the bamboo tube tea bought is worth the money needs to be judged by combining the taste and taste of the drink.
2. Smell its fragrance
In general, in order to facilitate the later transformation and loss of moisture, but also to facilitate the pry of tea, usually leave a relatively small opening on the side of the bamboo tube. Through this small side slit, a preliminary look and smell can be carried out.
Bamboo tube tea in the storage process, naturally absorbed the aroma of bamboo, there is a bamboo fragrance is inevitable, can be through this feature to do preliminary identification.
Good bamboo tube tea, when warm sniffing, you can also smell a strong honey fragrance in the fair cup; in the tasting process, the aroma and taste of tea will be better, and the smoke aroma will be more intense. During the long storage process, there will also be aromas such as wood fragrance and chen incense. As long as there is no obvious heterogeneous gas in the dried tea or tea soup, its quality is mostly not too bad.
3. Look at its color
(1) Dry brown color
In the case of ensuring that the tea pry method is correct, the strip of bamboo tube tea is relatively complete, the dry tea is dark green, the older, the color of the dry tea will be darker, and accompanied by a faint bamboo aroma.
(2) Look at the soup color
In the process of brewing, the color of the tea soup of bamboo tube tea shows a gradual deepening trend, the tea soup at the first brew is bright yellow and transparent, and the second brew begins, the tea soup changes from bright yellow to golden yellow, and the later stage is transparent and bright amber.
4. Taste its taste
You can look at how well it brews soup, or how bitter it is. Generally speaking, the better the quality of bamboo tube tea, the longer the year, the lower the bitterness of the tea. Even if there is a bitter feeling, it will be weakened in the long-term process of Conghua City, or the tea soup will be introduced, and the bitter taste and astringency will quickly subside in the mouth.
The other is to see if it has any peculiar smells such as water stuffiness and ash. Under normal circumstances, after tasting the bamboo tube tea, there will be a dry fire feeling, which may also be because it needs to go through the roasting process in the production process, but the tea with a longer year, the fire of the tea will not be so obvious, and it will be transformed into a tantalizing light smoke.
The last thing that needs to be done is to combine the overall tasting process to see whether its raw jinhui and the foam resistance of the tea leaves, the old tenderness of the leaf bottom, etc., bring us a relatively high-quality tasting experience.
Considering the above factors comprehensively, without blame, as long as one or more conditions are met, and the overall tasting feeling is pleasant, it can be determined that this tea is a "qualified" or good bamboo tube tea. (This article is the original of the tea network, author: Jian Shu)