Drinking tea is life, and tasting tea is art.
A magical oriental leaf, carrying people's yearning for a better life, the quest for self-cultivation, all the way from ancient times. It is recorded in the "Book of Tea": "Tea is drinking, originating from Shennong's and smelling in Lu Zhougong." "The remains of artificially planted tea trees were found at the Tianluo Mountain site in Yuyao, Zhejiang, and our ancestors began to use tea more than 6,000 years ago. From raw drinking and chewing to blending and decoction, from Song-style tea ordering to boiling water, what has changed is the way of tea drinking, and what has not changed is to explore the true taste of tea.
Tea has a real taste, but it is also hard to find.
Tea, as the flower of the mountains and rivers, seems to be said by Song Huizong, "non-mediocre children can be obtained and known". So how can we find a cup of good tea that "dispels stagnation and cleanses, and leads to cleansing and harmony"?
Song Huizong gave his opinion in "Daguan Tea Treatise": "Fu tea is based on taste, sweet and smooth, and it is the whole taste, but the products of Beiyuan and Yuyuan are both." Beiyuan Tribute Tea is the royal tea of the Song Dynasty, and it is "unique in the world" with its "sweet and fragrant essence" of its tea. "Fragrant, sweet, heavy, and slippery" is the standard for Song Huizong to define good tea in "Daguan Tea Treatise".
Let's follow Song Huizong to recognize a good tea from the four dimensions of "fragrant, sweet, heavy and slippery".
"Incense"
"Tea has a true fragrance and is not a dragon musk deer", Song Huizong believes that the aroma of tea is like Lan Ruozhi, which is pure and pleasant, and is not comparable to ambergris and musk. Tea aroma shows different types and temperaments due to the different characteristics of varieties, processing methods and planting environments. How to explore a good brew of tea from the dimension of aroma? purity, elegance and richness. When we boil water sencha or brew it, the tea soup is hot and the tea fragrance comes to the nose, at this time we can distinguish whether there is an uncoordinated odor in the tea aroma. When the temperature of the tea soup drops to about 55 degrees, the variety type and elegance of the aroma are judged by warm smell. Cold sniffing distinguishes the shade, that is, what people usually say "there is a lingering fragrance after cold", and the fragrance of tea in the cup after drinking for a long time is a manifestation of strong and lasting aroma. In the Song Dynasty's Wang Yuyan's "Dragon and Phoenix Tea", "fragrant in Jiuwan Fanglan Qi", the tea fragrance is fresh as stepping into the empty valley, and the orchid is fragrant, and the heart is relaxed and happy.
Gan
"Sipping bitter and sweet, tea also", it can be seen that the sweetness of tea soup is the characteristic of tea. Ding Wei, who served as a transfer envoy to Fujian during the Xianping period of the Northern Song Dynasty, supervised the production of tribute tea in Jianzhou. "Beiyuan Dragon Tea, Sweet and Fresh is Treasure" is his tea monograph "Beiyuan Tea Record" on the fresh and sweet experience of Beiyuan tribute tea. Theanine and soluble sugar in tea are important substances in the sweetness of tea, and the bitterness in tea soup is due to excessive caffeine and tea polyphenols in tea. The sweetness and freshness of tea are mainly determined by the phenolic ammonia ratio in the tea soup, and the higher the altitude, the higher the amino acid content. Soluble sugar has a sweet taste, and theanine is fresh, both of which are pleasant. If we drink a brew of tea, we can return to the sweetness, it should be a rare thing in tea.
"Heavy"
The tea soup is mellow and full. Mei Yaochen has a poem in the poem "Tasting Tea and Public Ceremony" that "the soup is tender and the water is light and the tea is not dispersed, and the mouth is sweet and refreshing and the taste is long". "The tea is not scattered" and "the taste is long" show the mellow taste of Beiyuan tribute tea, which makes people have a long aftertaste. The taste of tea soup is determined by the overall extract of tea, which is composed of tea polyphenols, amino acids, caffeine, pectin, pigments, etc. The more extract of the tea, the thicker the tea soup and the higher the quality of the tea. As the saying goes, "thick is not thick and thin". Distinguishing the intensity of tea soup cannot be relied on by the eyes, not that the darker the color of the tea, the stronger the taste. The taste needs to be judged by sipping, so that the taste buds can fully experience it. If you feel that the aroma in the tea soup is rich, the soup is viscous, and the taste is three-dimensional and stimulating, this is the experience brought by the mellow and full soup feeling. The connotation of tea is inseparable from the planting conditions of tea, one is the mountain field, that is, the tea saint Lu Yu said that "the upper one produces rotten stones, the middle one produces gravel soil, and the lower one produces loess". One is the altitude, the long growth cycle of tea in the high mountains, and the large temperature difference between day and night, which is also another reason for the high connotation.
Slippery
The soup is delicate and silky. Su Shi, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, was a gourmet, and his requirements for taste buds were not low, and he wrote in the poem "The bones are clear and the flesh is greasy and positive", which is also a delicate and smooth experience of tea soup. Some people say that it is not tea if it is not bitter or astringent, but it is certainly not good tea if it is bitter and astringent. The astringency in tea is caused by the polyphenols in the tea leaves. Excessive polyphenols in tea can form an impermeable membrane with saliva in the mouth, making the tongue and palate dry and astringent. Tea polyphenols, high content of young buds, low content of coarse old leaves, high content of summer tea, low content of spring tea, high sunshine and low scattered light. At the same time, the inadequacy of tea processing technology is also an important reason for the astringency of tea. Taking Beiyuan Oolong as an example, if the water of the tea green is not in place during the green making process, the astringency in the tea soup will be enhanced. Drinking tea can quench thirst and refresh people, tasting tea can soothe people's hearts, and walking tea can cultivate self and delight people. "Sweet and slippery" tastes the good taste of life.
Tea Tasting
Text/Cao Xianmin
The fragrant wind drifts through the forest,
Nectar drips down the jade plate.
重峦叠翠藏幽径,
Smooth as velvet into the throat.
Order tea and pour it lightly,
Praise spread everywhere.
The tea rhyme is long and the heart is quiet,
Life is like tea, and it needs to be carefully observed.
Carry forward the excellent Chinese culture
Promote the progress of social civilization!
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