When it comes to tea, whether you love tea or love to drink tea drinks in the supermarket, we often hear a term tea polyphenols.
What the hell is it?
In general, tea polyphenols are not a thing, but a general term for polyphenols in tea, also known as tea tanning or tea tannins, which are the main components that form the color and aroma of tea. The content of tea polyphenols is the highest in the dry matter of tea leaves, which is why when it comes to tea, it is always impossible to avoid it.
Tea polyphenols are so important to tea, so what does it look like?
The tea polyphenols themselves are light or nearly white, while the extract is brick red due to oxidation.
In the process of tea production, with the degree of oxidation (that is, the degree of fermentation we often say), substances such as theaflavin, thearubicin and theaflamin will be formed in turn, and the color of the tea soup will become darker. Therefore, when making green tea, it is necessary to destroy the activity of polyphenol oxidase with high temperature and retain the color of green tea.
Although green tea is an unfermented tea, the tea soup will turn yellow after a long time, which is also the reason.
So what does tea polyphenols taste like? We often say that not bitter or astringent is not tea, here, bitter and astringent are two tastes, and tea polyphenols are the main components that make up the astringency of tea soup.
So why is tea not astringent, because in addition to tea polyphenols, the amino acids in tea can bring fresh taste, as well as sweet sugar, bitter caffeine. The most abundant content of tea polyphenols is catechins, and how the ratio of catechins to amino acids determines the taste of tea soup.
And the variety of teas we drink, the reason why the taste is some fresh, some are mellow, some are mellow, and some are sweet, is determined by the different content and mutual ratio of these flavored substances.
The variety of tea flavors is fascinating, and the unique aroma of tea is also refreshing. The moderate oxidation of tea polyphenols will produce a lot of aromatic lipid substances, so that the taste of tea is more layered, and tea lovers who like oolong tea and Pu'er tea should have a deep understanding of this.
The common six major types of tea, due to the processing method and the fresh leaves picked are different, the content of tea polyphenols is simply speaking, the highest content is green tea, followed by white tea, yellow tea, followed by oolong tea, the lowest content is black tea and black tea. The low content makes the pungent taste weaker, which is why we often say that green tea hurts the stomach.
Look, tea polyphenols are not mysterious!