Regular tea drinkers must have encountered Pu'er tea with a smokey smell, and even called it "smoke fragrance" and enshrined it as a symbol of high quality. Are those Pu-erh teas really as precious as they say they are? Where does the smell of smoke come from? We'll explain them all next.
1. Tea picked in the rainy season is prone to smoke.
Yunnan summer rain for several months in a row, resulting in tea pickers often brave the rain to pick tea during the rainy season or have to pick tea when the rain does not dry. So natural rainwater is the main source of smoke.
You can try to cook a pot of rice with the summer rain and feel if the smoke in the rice is the same as the smoke in Pu'er tea?
2, the reason for the processing technology.
In many tea producing areas in Yunnan. Economic backwardness, limited processing conditions, are fried in iron pots, some stoves are not very strict, or the stove hall burning wood mouth is set in the house, in the frying tea when the smoke into the pot, will also cause smoke smell. Tea is relatively easy to absorb odors, especially in the rainy season, the smoke is heavier. This results in a smoky smell of the tea being stir-fried.
3. Farmhouse tea.
There is a fire pit in many places in Yunnan. Once the summer continuous rainy day, if there is no special sunning greenhouse, it is inevitable to take the tea to the fire pond to dry, the fire pond side drying tea, there is smoke smell is inevitable.
Therefore, we can equate the smell of smoke with the smell of miscellaneous odors. Most tea factories also strive to control the appearance of such smoke in order to ensure quality, such as trying to avoid rainwater in the tea elite, improving the pu'er tea process and equipment, and building a special greenhouse for pu'er tea. It is precisely because the tea factories are becoming more and more strict with their own requirements, and there are very few teas with this flavor on the market.
Perhaps someone deliberately creates a smoky taste during processing to meet the unique tastes of a small number of people. However, that taste must be pleasurable. If we are exposed to the disgusting smell of smoke oil in our daily lives, it is best to leave and stop listening to the seller's boasts.