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Oxidation makes tea black

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Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#71

Post by fwtf »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #59
mips_avatar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term black tea is ambiguous because it refers to different things depending on where you are/who you are talking to. In the west, black tea generally refers to a fully oxidized (autolysis) red tea that has not been fermented. However, in other parts of the world black tea refers to fermented puerh. How the puerh is fermented depends on whether it is wet or dry processed (shu vs sheng) but fermentation is an impor…

I remember in Taiwan I was confused the tea I called "black" they called "red" (紅茶) But then I google that and there are some seriously red looking teas out there.

But black tea also kinda makes red tea doesn't it?

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#74

Post by HumanReadable »

hbarka wrote: post #27

The other dark tea, the fermented tea they mention in this article aka hei cha or commonly referred to as pu’er, scares me because there are bad quality versions of it containing mold due to their fermentation process. Hard to detect since it’s also a kind of black tea.

It's pretty easy to spot mold in your pu'er whether it's shu or sheng. I wouldn't worry about it.

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#75

Post by almog »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #68
almog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same boat now, it was a hard start because I tried young shengs first and didn't know what notes to look in them. After trying some affordable aged CNNPs (from YS), I found my liking to younger shengs too. Nice to see there's a sub-community of tea lovers here on HN.

:) if you like YS I also recommend trying white2tea (a wetter storage, so even his relatively young teas will taste older) or bitterleafteas.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of white2tea, could you share a recommendations for something you've liked from white2tea?

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#76

Post by fileeditview »

timonoko wrote: post #42

I was sort of suffering from colored tooths (teeth?) problem. Meaning every time I took selfie I suffered about 5 seconds. The bloody dentist suggested monthly visits to the bloody dental hygienists. Strange thing happened: I was flying my kite for kite aerial photography and a chinese ((or taiwanese) or japanese) tourist noted my blackened teeth an told that green tea does not color. And it worked ok. Even the cheap…

I actually prefer green tea and would urge you to try some "good" ones instead of the Lidl one :)

The difference is huge if you have a high quality green tea. Also make sure to use the right temperature to infuse. I would never go higher than 80°C and for some teas I only us 70°C. This is the most important thing a lot of people do wrong. Hotter water destroys the flavor and makes the tea bitter. Also very short steeping times from 1m to 1,5m are the norm.

Another thing noteworthy is that you can actually use a portion of green tea for 2-3 times depending on the quality (on the same day).

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#77

Post by almog »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #51
almog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good description of the enzymatic process in tea. Regarding "oldest process" though, I'm not sure which is the earliest processing method for tea but compressed tea / tea bricks as Pu-erh (although compressed tea ≠ Pu-erh) is attributed to Tang dynasty (AD 618-907) and it precedes Matcha which is attributed to the Song dynasty period (960–1279).

The way they drank tea in the Han dynasty is interesting; centuries before before a real processing method came about. Guo Pu noted in the book Er Ya (Chinese: 尔雅), the earliest Chinese dictionary, tea can be boiled to consume like thick soup. More precisely, to make a cup of tea at that time you need to mix millet and other condiments with tea leaves first them boil them together till mushy state https://www.teavivr…

I've heard that in Tang dynasty Pu-Erh was important in order to keep the peace in remote areas partially because it was consumed as a substitute for fresh vegetables in areas where one could not grow them.

Consuming tea as thick soup to me suggests the idea that maybe tea was used in that way even back in Han dynasty (I'm sure that whether this is correct or not would be obvious to a historian, which I'm not).

Do you have any recommendations for a curriculum of sort for tea history?

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#78

Post by westoncb »

fileeditview wrote: post #76
timonoko wrote: post #42

I was sort of suffering from colored tooths (teeth?) problem. Meaning every time I took selfie I suffered about 5 seconds. The bloody dentist suggested monthly visits to the bloody dental hygienists. Strange thing happened: I was flying my kite for kite aerial photography and a chinese ((or taiwanese) or japanese) tourist noted my blackened teeth an told that green tea does not color. And it worked ok. Even the cheap…

I actually prefer green tea and would urge you to try some "good" ones instead of the Lidl one :) The difference is huge if you have a high quality green tea. Also make sure to use the right temperature to infuse. I would never go higher than 80°C and for some teas I only us 70°C. This is the most important thing a lot of people do wrong. Hotter water destroys the flavor and makes the tea bitter. Also very short stee…

I'd like to try this but it seems just about impossible to locate actual high quality green tea online.

Basically every green tea product on amazon, even those in the price range of $50 for a standard quantity, has loads of reviews talking both about how excellent it is and how terrible it is, each bringing detailed points in their favor.

I figure it's mostly due to review warfare between products, but in any case the situation is quite dismal—I investigated something like 30 products and couldn't find a single one that looked like a safe purchase, even with a very flexible budget.

Not sure where else to look since the same problem exists on a larger scale with the rest of the internet since everyone's trying to push their brand or trash someone else's.

Re: Oxidation makes tea black

#79

Post by fileeditview »

westoncb wrote: post #78
fileeditview wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually prefer green tea and would urge you to try some "good" ones instead of the Lidl one :) The difference is huge if you have a high quality green tea. Also make sure to use the right temperature to infuse. I would never go higher than 80°C and for some teas I only us 70°C. This is the most important thing a lot of people do wrong. Hotter water destroys the flavor and makes the tea bitter. Also very short stee…

I'd like to try this but it seems just about impossible to locate actual high quality green tea online. Basically every green tea product on amazon, even those in the price range of $50 for a standard quantity, has loads of reviews talking both about how excellent it is and how terrible it is, each bringing detailed points in their favor. I figure it's mostly due to review warfare between products, but in any case th…

Not sure where you are located but e.g. here in Germany there are quite a few online tea merchants where you can buy good tea. I would never try to find tea on Amazon or ebay.

Aside from the online merchants you can find small tea shops in all cities usually.

And aside from the quality the taste preferences vary a lot obviously. Most tea shops offer some set/package with a lot of different teas in small quantities for testing.

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