碧螺春

BiLu

oCh

un

大红袍

DaH

ongP

aolo

is Chinese traditional custom that a host has to serve a visiting guest a cup of tea firstly when he enters his house. hinese tea culture refers to

the methods of preparation of tea, the equipment used to make tea and the occasions in which tea is consumed in China. The terms chayi, 茶 艺 (“Art of Tea”) and “Tea Ceremony” have been used, but the term 茶文化 (“Tea Culture”) includes more than just the ceremony. Also “culture” is easier to translate into English than the Chinese term 艺 ("art").

国

中

传 茶

文

化

统

Tea Culture

As a sign of respectIn Chinese society, the younger generation always shows their respect to the older generation by offering a cup of tea. Inviting their elders to go to restaurants and having some tea is a traditional activity on holidays. In the past, people of lower rank served tea to higher-ranking people. Today, as Chinese society becomes more liberal, sometimes parents may pour a cup of tea for their children, or a boss may even pour tea for subordinates at restaurants. However, the lower-ranking person should not expect the higher-ranking person to serve him or her tea in formal occasions.

茶文化

Tea Culture

For a family gatheringWhen sons and daughters leave home because of work or get married, they may have few times to visit their parents, and parents may seldom meet their grandchildren as well. Therefore, going to restaurants and drinking tea becomes an important activity for family gatherings. Every Sunday, Chinese restaurants are crowded, especially when people celebrate festivals. This phenomenon reflects Chinese family values.

茶文化

Tea Culture

To apologizeIn Chinese culture, people make serious apologies to others by pouring tea for them. For example, children serving tea to their parents is a sign of regret and submission.

茶文化

To express thanks to your elders on one's wedding dayIn the traditional Chinese marriage ceremony, both the bride and groom kneel in front of their parents and serve them tea. That is the most devout way to express their gratitude. In front of their parents, it is a practice for the married couple to say, "Thank you for bringing us up. Now we are getting married. We owe it all to you." The parents will usually drink a small portion of the tea and then give them a red envelope, which symbolizes good luck. Another variant is that the bride serve tea to the groom's parents, symbolizing that she is to become a part of the latter's family.

Tea Culture

茶文化

To express thanks to your elders on one's wedding dayTo connect large families on wedding daysThe tea ceremony during a wedding also serves as a means for both parties to meet with each other. As Chinese families can be rather extended, and there may be one or two hundred people, it is entirely possible during a courtship to not have been introduced to someone. This was particularly true in older generations where the patriarch may have had more than one wife and not all family members were always on good terms. As such, during the tea ceremony, the couple would serve tea to all family members and call them by their official title. Drinking the tea symbolized acceptance into the family, while refusing to drink symbolized opposition to the wedding and was quite unheard of since it would result in a loss of "face". Older generations would give a red envelope to the matrimonial couple while the couple would be expected to give red envelopes to the unmarried younger ones.

Tea Culture

Folding the napkin in tea ceremonies is a traditional action and is done to keep away bad Qi energy in China as tea ( 茶 ) was regarded as one of the seven daily necessities. The others being firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar （柴 , 米 , 油 , 鹽 ,醬 , 醋） .茶

文化

Tea Making P

rocess

White teaYoung leaves or new growth buds that have undergone minimal oxidation through a slight amount of withering before halting the oxidative processes by being baked dry, with the optimal withering conditions at 30 degrees Celsius (65% relative humidity) for 26 hours. Withering of the leaves can last from around one to three days depending on the season and temperature of the processing environment. There is an international disagreement on definition of white tea between China and other producing countries. The buds may be shielded from sunlight to prevent the formation of chlorophyll. White tea is produced in lesser quantities than most other styles, and can be correspondingly more expensive than tea from the same plant processed by other methods. It is less well known in countries outside of China, though this is changing with increased western interest in the tea.

制茶工艺

Tea Making P

rocess

Green teaThis tea has undergone the least amount of oxidation. The oxidation process is halted by the quick application of heat after tea picking, either with steam, the Japanese method, or by dry cooking in hot pans, the traditional Chinese method. Tea leaves may be left to dry as separate leaves or they may be rolled into small pellets to make Gunpowder tea. This process is time consuming and is typically done with pekoes of higher quality. The tea is processed within one to two days of harvesting, and if done correctly retains most of the chemical composition of the fresh leaves from which it was produced. Variation in steaming time for fixation or processing from additional stages of rolling and drying are sometimes used to improve or altering the flavour for types of green tea.

制茶工艺

Tea Making P

rocess

Yellow teaThis tea is processed in a similar manner to green tea, but instead of immediate drying after fixation, it is stacked, covered, and gently heated in a humid environment. This initiates oxidation in the chlorophyll of the leaves through non-enzymatic and non-microbial means, which results in a yellowish or greenish-yellow colour.

制茶工艺

Tea Making P

rocess

Oolong teaThis tea's oxidation is stopped somewhere between the standards for green tea and black tea. The processing typically takes two to three days from withering to drying with a relatively short oxidation period of several hours. In Chinese, semi-oxidized teas are collectively grouped as blue tea ( 青茶 , literally: blue-green tea / "celadon tea"), while the term "oolong" is used specifically as a name for certain semi-oxidized teas. Common wisdom about lightly oxidized teas in Taiwan (a large producer of Oolong) is that too little oxidation upsets the stomach of some consumers. Even so, some producers attempt to minimize oxidation in order to produce a specific taste or allow the tea leaves to be easily rolled into the spherical or half-sphere form demanded by buyers in the market.

制茶工艺

Tea Making P

rocess

Black teaThe tea leaves are allowed to completely oxidize. Black tea is first withered to induce protein breakdown and reduce water content (68-77% of original). The leaves then undergo a process known in the industry is "disruption" or "leaf maceration", which through bruising or cutting disrupts leaf cell structures, releasing the leaf juices and enzymes that activate oxidation.The oxidation process takes between 45–90 minutes to 3 hours and is done at high humidity between 20-30 degrees Celsius, transforming much of the catechins of the leaves into complex tannin. Orthodox processed black teas are further graded according to the post-production leaf quality by the Orange Pekoe system, while Crush, Tear, Curl (CTC; or "Cut, tear, curl") teas use a different grading system. Orthodox tea leaves are heavily rolled either by hand or mechanically on a cylindrical rolling table or a rotorvane. The rolling table consists of a ridged table-top moving in an eccentric manner to a large hopper of tea leaves, of which the leaves are pressed down onto the table-top. The process produces a mixture of whole and broken leaves, and particles which are then sorted, oxidized, and dried. The rotovane consisted of an auger pushing withered tea leaves through a vane cylinder which crushes and evenly cuts the leaves. CTC black teas is a production method developed by William McKercher in 1930 and consist of machines with contra-rotation rotors with surfaces patterning that cut and tear the leaves producing a product popular for use in tea bags. The rotovane to often use to precut the withered tea prior to the CTC and to create broken orthodox processed black tea.

制茶工艺

Tea Making P

rocess

Post-fermented teaTeas that are allowed to undergo a second oxidation after the fixation of the tea leaves, such as Pu-erh, Liu'an, and Liubao, are collectively referred to as secondary or post-fermentation teas in English.[31] In Chinese they are categorized as Dark tea or black tea. This is not to be confused with the English term Black tea, known in Chinese as red tea. Pu-erh, also known as Póu léi (Polee) in Cantonese is the most common type of post-fermetation tea in the market.

制茶工艺

By Krystal

Yang