What is White tea?
As teas that have regained popularity in recent years, in addition to black tea, green tea or oolong, white tea is less known. There are even tea lovers who mistakenly believe that white tea is a kind of black tea or green tea.
Among the existing Chinese teas, tea leaves are divided into six categories: green tea, yellow tea, white tea, oolong tea, black tea, and dark tea. White tea is actually one of the major teas, and it is waiting to be discovered by more tea lovers.
White tea is not named becaus the tea or tea soup is white, but it is also closely related to its appearance-because the finished tea is mostly sprouts, covered with dense pekoe, hairy, like silver like snow.
It is the Baihao Silver Needle in white tea.
There is more than one classification of white tea. In the latest national standard, three different grades of white tea can be made from the same tea tree. Baihao Silver Needle, White Peony, and Shoumei, the three together constitute the category of white tea.
In the production process, white tea is not fried or kneaded, but the technical details of each production link are not simple. After the fresh tea leaves are picked, they first need to wither in the sun or indoors, with appropriate temperature and humidity. Secondly, when tea leaves are withered to 80% dryness naturally, bake them with a slow fire to 100% dry. The processing procedure seems simple, but to make a sweet honey tea rhyme, you need to accurately grasp every detail in the processing process.
White tea is mostly gray-green, with white hair attached to the surface, and most of the tea soup is fresh and mellow. It is different from green tea which is not fermented and green tea soup is relatively irritating. White tea is similar to Pu'er tea and can be stored for many years. During storage, the contents of white tea will slowly transform.
Values
1-year tea, 3-year medicine, 3-year treasure
Friends who are familiar with white tea must have heard the sentence, "1-year tea, 3-year medicine, 3-year treasure".
First, white tea can be stored for a long time.
The second is that white tea has different flavors during different periods.
Third, aged white tea has good medicinal effects.
The value of white tea is that its flavor is extremely close to the original taste. Although it can be drunk when it is first processed, the quality of white tea is sublimated after long-term storage, quietly realizing the benign transformation of tea properties and flavors.
For example, the aroma of white tea transforms from the previous fragrance of flowers, and fresh bamboo shoots, and flowers into medicinal, aging, and zongye fragrance. The taste of white tea has changed from the freshness, sweetness, and sweetness of the past to sweetness, richness, and fullness, and it will be even better when it comes back to sweetness.
"One year tea" refers to the new white tea of that year. Because white tea is a slightly fermented tea, the first year white tea that has just been produced has a taste similar to green tea, and the tea is colder in nature. The aroma is fresh and pure, similar to soy milk; the soup is light yellow and bright, and the soup feels refreshing and sharp, such as clear spring nectar, and the taste is relatively flat.
"Three-year medicine" refers to white tea that has been stored for three or four years, and its tea properties have quietly changed. In properly stored white tea, within two or three years, the internal composition of the tea has begun to change: the green gas fades, the soup color deepens, from light yellow to apricot or orange. At this time, the aroma has gradually become mellow, and there is often a "lotus leaf fragrance", the taste becomes softer, the mouth is smooth, and the tea nature gradually changes from cold to calm. At this time, the white tea, tea and medicine, are suitable for collection.
"Qinianbao" refers to white tea that has been stored for seven years. This is already considered old white tea, it is a very rare good tea, and everyone regards it as a treasure in the collection. Seven-year-old white tea has a sweet floral fragrance, scent of old and jujube, and even develops into a comfortable "medicinal fragrance".
The color of a good aged white tea soup is like amber, bright and oily; its taste is full and full, the mouth is smoother, and the sweetness and viscosity will gradually increase.
Benefits - Traditional Chinese Medicine
White tea is included in the pharmacopoeia. Many well-known pharmacies buy white tea every year and store it for a period of time as a medicine or drug primer. When you go to a Chinese pharmacy, you will find that Chinese medicine has white tea, which is sold by gram.
White tea has not been fire-fried, and it retains its coldness compared to other teas. The tea polyphenols that can be sterilized and disinfected are well known to everyone. White tea also retains the most due to the craftsmanship. These two items are enough to make white tea have unique medicinal effects in de-fire, sterilization and detoxification. Coupled with years of aging, the de-fire function is more obvious.
White tea has remarkable medicinal effects. White tea can sober up alcohol, clear heat and moisturize the lungs, calm the liver and nourish blood, reduce inflammation and detoxification, reduce blood pressure and fat, and eliminate fatigue. Especially after two or three years of aging, the inside of the white tea will slowly change, the aroma will become aging, and the taste will become softer. The tea is mild.
If aging is six or seven years old, white tea is old, at this time the aging of the white tea content becomes more and more mellow, and apart from the aging fragrance, it has a unique fragrance. The taste is fragrant, the soup is amber, red and transparent. After arriving this year of white tea, drinking a few cups of hot old white tea will make you feel much more relaxed.