"Source of this article: People’s Daily Press"
A friend often asks me, "How to judge whether tea is good?" I seriously replied: "Tea looks clean, and it tastes sweet and delicious, which is good tea." They didn’t think so. They thought I was either perfunctory or empty. No way, I have to talk about how to judge whether tea is good.
Appearance. The shapes of tea are various, and the most common ones are strip-shaped, curly, long and round. No matter what the shape of tea leaves is, it is judged by the rope, tenderness, thickness, weight and uniformity of tea leaves. Usually, the rope is fine and tight, the gap is small, and the volume is small, followed by the bulky and loose one. Generally speaking, no matter what shape of tea leaves are, as long as they are compact and heavy, without yellow flakes and thick branches, they will not be bad.
Gloss. It is difficult to subjectively say which color of tea is absolutely good for tea from different producing areas and different technologies, but one thing can be objectively judged, that is, the gloss of tea. No matter what color tea is, as long as it looks bright, oily and textured, it is good tea.
Dry humidity. The water content standard of all kinds of tea is kept at 5%-7%. More than 8% of tea is easy to age, and more than 12% of tea is easy to mildew. At present, many tea farmers deliberately control the water content at more than 10% when making crude tea, so that the weight of tea will increase. This kind of raw tea will feel very good when it is first tried out of the oven, but the taste will change completely after a while, so the dryness and humidity of tea is very important. I introduce a method to measure the moisture content of tea by hand: hold a large handful of tea in your hand for three to four times repeatedly, and there is a tingling sensation in your hand. When you hear the sound of broken branches, the moisture content of tea will generally not exceed 8%; The tea with water content above 10% has no tingling sensation in the palm of your hand when you hold it, and the tea is a little soft and smells green. Of course, there is also a remedy to buy tea with high water content, that is, put the tea in an air-conditioned room with air conditioning, which can not only remove some water from the tea, but also prevent it from rapid oxidation.
Soup color. The color of soup refers to the color of tea soup after brewing, which can be divided into three types: normal color, bad color change and old color change. Normal color refers to the tea made under normal harvesting conditions, and the tea soup shows the normal color after brewing. For example, green tea or green tea is green or light yellow (also called goose yellow) after brewing; Black tea is red soup color or golden soup color, red and bright. Bad discoloration means that it is difficult for tea soup to present its proper color because of improper collection, transportation or initial preparation of fresh tea. For example, the soup color of deteriorated green tea is grayish brown or reddish in yellow. Aging discoloration means that it is difficult for tea soup to present its proper color due to aging in the production process. For example, if the tea leaves are not kneaded in time after fixation, and are not spread to cool or dry in time after kneading, the soup color of new tea will be old. Properly made new tea, the soup is bright and crystal clear; When the tea is aged, the soup color is yellow, brown and gray, and the turbidity is everywhere.
The above are some opinions on "observing the face and observing the color". Let’s talk about the soul of tea endoplasm.
Smell the fragrance. Different land, climate, varieties and production techniques make the aroma of all kinds of tea have their own characteristics and styles. As a whole, it can be summarized into five evaluation factors: purity, richness, freshness, flatness and coarseness.
Pure: the fragrance is pure, and there is no miscellaneous taste and greasy feeling.
Strong: The aroma is strong and long.
Fresh and refreshing: the smell is fresh, which makes people feel refreshed, such as being in a mountain or a place with a good ecological environment, and feeling in the air with high negative ions.
Ping: The aroma is plain, and there is no strange smell.
Coarse: fragrant, but the fragrance is mixed, choking the nose and spicy.
The durability of aroma is also a factor to judge the quality of tea. I condensed the criteria for judging good tea into four simple words-quiet and elegant, and the durability of tea is reflected in the word "quiet". "Quiet" means that the aroma of tea is long and lasting.
I sum up the smell of incense as follows: the pure is pure, the fragrance is elegant but not greasy, and the light and tasteful is quiet. With this feature, good tea is undoubtedly also.
Let’s talk about the taste of tea. Taste means the feeling after drinking. Alcohol is just right. Tea tastes fresh, mellow, fragrant and sweet. The taste of inferior tea is bitter, coarse and pungent, and some people interpret this performance as strong and sweet, especially the tea drinkers of the older generation in Chaoshan often describe this bad taste as "fleshy", "full mouth" and "strong enough".
Sometimes the tea soup tastes bad, which may be due to the thick water. Rough water is not a feeling, but a fact. Sometimes, we feel that after drinking tea soup, there are attachments on the tongue surface or the bottom of the tongue, which makes the tongue surface feel rough. This is because there are more particles in the tea soup. There are two sources of particulate matter: first, the tea processing process is unsanitary, dust and sand are attached, or wood ash particles are caused by improper baking with charcoal fire, which belongs to foreign coarse particles; Second, the release of particles is related to the quality of tea. For example, the tea growing at low altitude has high temperature, fast growth speed, thick leaves and loose fibers. After making and baking at high temperature, once soaked, the crumbs and particles on the edge of tea will dissolve in water, making the tea soup more particles and the tea soup thicker. This is an endogenous particle, which will have a dull and astringent taste after drinking.
In front of me, I talked about several basic elements of tea evaluation, from the shape, appearance and gloss of tea to the color, smell and taste of soup, and finally talked about the evaluation of leaf bottom.
Many people drink tea, whether they understand or not, they will pick up the cover bowl and smell it, and then poke the tea with the cover. The technical term of this link is "viewing the bottom of the leaf". Viewing the bottom of leaves is also a method to judge the grade of tea. Generally speaking, the color is the first thing to look at at the bottom of the leaves. After fully brewing, the leaves are spread out and the color is uniform, and one side is not red and the other side is green. The texture of the leaves is oily, there is no obvious explosion point or burning point, and the integrity of the leaves is high. It is good tea to have such a leaf bottom. Of course, tea culture is profound, and not all teas are the same. Some teas with obvious characteristics, such as Jin Junmei in Tongmuguan, are still tall and straight after soaking in water for more than 20 years, and each bud head is bright and thick, like a red tassel gun head; If it is Jin Junmei made of green tea buds from Guanwai or Jiangxi, after several times of brewing, all the buds will stick together and never stand up again.
Of course, these people need to be judged by people who have rich experience or major in tea research, and ordinary tea drinkers don’t need to spend so much energy to study these problems.
(This article is excerpted from People’s Daily Publishing House "Thinking about Tea")
