I've bought and been given along time several bags of what I would call "dry" green tea. I call it green because the tea produced from it it's yellow / green. And dry because its leaves before infusing are not "green", but a color like dark grey / green, and have a texture similar to black indian tea. Most of these bags come from China (I bought one in Korea).
I was wondering if there is an specific way to label this kind of tea, if you know what I am talking about ...
This sounds like typical Chinese green tea. Maybe you were expecting it to be bright green, like Japanese sencha? That bright green color comes from steaming the leaves rather than, as usual in China, roasting or "frying" them during manufacture. But really, this isn't terribly important, and there's a vast range of different tastes and aromas available from teas that look like what you've described.
/Lew
you are right. after drinking some steamed (i guess) green tea, like long jing or sencha, i somehow got to think that green tea was only that one. i guess i've confused myself.
Lewis Per>
Actually, Long Jing is fried.
Don't worry about it. The more you learn about tea, the more confused you get.
/Lew
what? now i am really messed up :)
tea leaves so green, that seem to have just been picked from the tree are fried?
maybe we are talking about different ways of preparing long jing ... or maybe not
that's a good point. i think i'll have to read more ...
Hmm, I've seen Long Jing that's fairly green, but never approaching the color intensity of sencha.
/Lew
As Lewis rightly pointed out, different processing can give rise to different aroma, colour and shape.
Chinese tea can be roasted (fried), baked or steamed. There are less steamed now, it was the norm until the 16th century (Ming dynasty, I think).
Different processing methods have different advantages and disadvantages.
Roasted tea has a stronger aroma. It's also able to manipulate the tea to the desired shape. Ever wonder how tender tea shoots like the long jing tea can be shaped into such such straight, flat, glossy, blade shaped appearance? That's the power of roasting. And it's hugely time consuming.
Here is the article to read for further info.
and on longjing tea
Hope it helps.
Julian
Lewis Perin ha escrit:
the longjings i've tried are, to my colour perception, as green as sencha. a bit brighter, i'd say. i have some bags, i may tell you what hanzi are there. i doubt they are roasted as opposed to the standard chinese green tea.
btw, has anyone tried this "zhu ye qing" brand, from the emei mountain in xichuan? is it roasted or steamed?
juliantai ha escrit:
thanks julian for the information and the links, very useful and clarifying. i got confused with the word "fried" which to me implies using oil. "roasted" sounds better to me. you may have realized i am not a native english speaker.
I'm not clear if you're implying the Zhu Ye Qing is a brand of Long Jing. I don't think it's a *brand* of anything; rather it's a variety of green tea, notably from Emei Shan.
/Lew
sorry, i did not write carefully. yes, i was not referring to a long jing, but to a brand (variety?) of greenland tea.
my concern was about its process. is it roasted or steamed? btw, you have it on your db.
Marc
Zhu Ye Qing is now a trademark owned by the production company in Er Mei Shan. It's quite silly really, because the name refers to the tea itself.
Traditionally the tea is flat-roasted, like long jing tea. But the Zhu Ye Qing company has taken this forward and put it into the factory environment, and produce the tea using a combination of roasting, steaming and baking.
If you know of any good sources of this tea, let me know. My experience with it has not been positive, but it's won several awards before, so there could be something to it.
Julian
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