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applestar
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Any Chinese green tea connoisseurs here?

This might not be exactly the right subforum for this topic, but since we talk about teas here, I’m going to go ahead and place the discussion here.

I know about Japanese green teas, but I would like to learn more about Chinese green teas. I found this page that lists presumably the major types, but am at a loss as to where to start. Is anyone familiar with these different kinds of Chinese green teas?


What You Should Know About Green Tea | Kitchn
https://www.thekitchn.com/what-you-shou ... als-202626

Chinese Green Teas
  • Biluochun or Pi Lo Chun (Spring Snail): Grown near fruit trees and rolled into a snail-like spiral. Floral, fruity aroma.
  • Chun Mee (Precious Eyebrow): Rolled into an eyebrow shape. Fruity, somewhat plum-like flavor.
  • Huangshan Maofeng (Yellow Mountain Fur Peak): New buds and leaves grown near the Yellow Mountain range. Mildly sweet flavor.
  • Longjing (Dragonwell): First-flush pan-roasted leaves. Mellow with a toasted chestnut aroma.
  • Lu'an Guapian (Melon Seed): Leave are shaped like melon seeds when they unfurl. Full-bodied and slightly sweet.
  • Taiping Houkui (Peaceful Monkey Leader): Often grown in a more wild manner. Sometimes has an orchid-like aroma.
  • Xinyang Maojian (Green Tip): Plucked from new growth with silvery tips. Delicate, sweet green flavor.
  • Zhu Cha (Gunpowder): Rolled into small pellets that unfurl as they steep. Robust, sweet, and a little smoky.
I can get pretty good commercial/common-popular kinds of Japanese green teas from Hmart. Where would you recommend I look for these? I’ve been drinking TAZO organic Gunpowder Green and Pan-fried Green and I like them both. I wonder if they have other kinds as well? I will have to look more closely next time I go to Whole Foods. Oh, another favorite is Jasmine-infused Green tea.

ETA - I looked at the box, TAZO Pan-fried Green is “called Precious Eyebrow” (so Chun Mee? But it doesn’t mention pan-frying in the description above....)

imafan26
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Interesting, but it sounds like a lot of advertising to me. Almost all regular teas (not herbal teas) are the leaves from camelia sinensis. Grown from China, Ceylon, India and probably some other places as well. It is a camelia and it is often grown in terraces on hillsides. It likes cool temperatures even in the tropics, so like coffee it is usually "mountain grown"

Japanese usually make green tea
Chinese tea, at least the one I am most familiar with is oolong and it is a black tea.
Jasmine tea, orange pekoe, even lipton teas are made from the tip leaves of the camelia bush. It is hand picked frequently because the best leaves are the young tips. The flowers of camelia sinensis are small an white.

What makes tea, green or black is the time that it is roasted. Longer roasting, makes for a blacker tea.
The flavors depends on what the leaves are infused with. Jasmine tea is made by putting the drying tea leaves in a room and mixing the jasmine flowers with the tea leaves and sealing the room for the scent to be infused overnite. Orange pekoe tea is made in similar fashion, by infusion.
Some the teas apparently are named for the way they are folded after.

Roasting tea is a lot like roasting coffee, a lot has to do with the roastmaster knowing just when it is ready and what extra things you choose to infuse in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMIH8e4nu-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6yiKKXRs2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUuw5rqWkZU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmAPu5j7X_w



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