If you try modern black long tea from five different manufacturers, each tastes dramatically different. How can one and the same variety be so versatile? There is a logical explanation for this, rooted in the history of China and our country as well. Let's take a closer look at what it is.
How are tea leaves selected? There are 11 in total, by which quality is determined. All of them are arranged according to the following principle:
- The cheapest varieties are made from large sheets without adding buds. Curl up into tubes or balls;
- A rank higher than the previous ones - the tips of the plant and young leaves are mixed in. Low content of shoots in expensive varieties is acceptable;
- With the postscript Golden - made from delicate plant parts (tips, tips, young leaves);
- With the postscript Finest - the most expensive varieties. This black and green tea is made from selected raw materials.
Baykhov tea what is it
Have you ever heard the name "Baihao Yinzhen"? It is known to any true connoisseur of a herbal drink. This is not green tea, as many think, but a rare variety that came from the Middle Kingdom, also known in our country as "Bai Hao". It translates into Russian as silver needles or villi. Looking at the structure of the tea leaves, the origin of the name becomes clear - these are light green-brown sticks with pointed ends, covered with white fluff on top. But what does long tea mean? These are not only the leaves, to which we are so accustomed, but also the buds of the tipsa bush, which have begun to bloom. The more the latter, the more valuable the product.
Tea and the Emperor: From the 12th to the 18th century, the presented drink was available only to the nobility, produced exclusively for the imperial palace. The death penalty was assumed for its export, which did not stop the smugglers, who received colossal money from European buyers.
What can be considered real long tea? With the beginning of international trade, enterprising Chinese merchants began to apply the famous name to other varieties. Thus, many nobles from Russia and European countries received a completely different tea drink. Only over time did they manage to figure out how to define a real product. It is produced in two counties - Zhenghe and Fuding, and also has its own differences. The Zhenghe product is darker and coarser, while the tips of the Fudin variety grow small and taste lighter.
Baykhov tea today - what does the market offer us?
As you can understand from the above, you will be able to buy the same drink produced by only a couple of provinces by paying a tidy sum. But this does not mean that tea, which has gained overwhelming popularity, is not produced elsewhere. Today, tipsy buds are grown both in various cities of China and in neighboring countries, often sold by weight.
What do large manufacturers produce? The concept of "long tea" is not a registered trademark - it is just the word "Bai Hao" put in our own way. Today it is customary to call loose varieties of the product. Therefore, the company can produce green tea or any other, giving it this name.
How is the real Baihao Yinzhen going? Like 800 years ago, the demands on plantation personnel are extremely high. The person should be cleaned and dressed. The use of perfumery is prohibited.
What kind of long tea to buy?
Despite the differences between the modern product and the original white "Bao Hao", it deserves attention. Over the years, manufacturers have bred many worthy species containing a lot of useful properties that have good taste. Take a closer look at the existing ones:
- Black: during manufacture, the leaf is rolled and fermented to naturally obtain the desired level of oxidation. The production of expensive varieties requires a technologist to manually establish the readiness of the product. Finally, drying is done.
- Green: There are several ways to make green tea - in some cases withering is done, in others it is not. The process of bringing the humidity up to 60% and the two-stage procedure for getting rid of moisture remain unchanged.
- Yellow: a popular product in China. Roasting and steaming are added to all of the above operations. It is distinguished by aroma and strong stimulating effect on the human body.
Red: Low fermentation gives this type of tea a burgundy brown hue. Just like the previous type, it is roasted and has a pronounced floral scent.
How to brew and drink long tea?
In countries where tea has become a national culture - China, Japan, England, special attention is paid to the drinking process. Show the Briton how this drink is consumed here - between times, spontaneously, to chat with a neighbor, and he will be horrified. She will not say out loud, but she will think to herself that such behavior is barbaric.
The cultural value of tea drinking lies in the observance of the rules, thanks to which a person separates himself from the animal world and contacts his society. Therefore, it was inherent primarily to kings, educated aristocrats, and only then entered the masses.
Today long tea, like any other, should be brewed based on the basic rules:
Water quality and temperature: the liquid should be soft, not containing a lot of metals. If one is not at hand, it is enough to let it settle. Re-boiled water is never used, moreover, it should not be brought to a temperature of 100 degrees at all, otherwise oxygen will disappear from the composition, and with it the liveliness of taste. It is better to remove the kettle when it reaches 70-90 degrees.
The quality of the dishes: have you already seen how the herbal drink lovers rinse the kettle with boiling water? This is done in order to fight off the smell. It is absolutely not important what the container is made of - if only it does not enter into a chemical combination with water. Clay, porcelain, earthenware are preferred.
Duration of infusion: pour the infusion into a quarter of the size of the vessel. After 50 seconds, fill it in completely. Such actions will allow you to first capture the main part of the taste, making it strong, and then bring the product to perfection. Two minutes is enough for him to gain the necessary power.
With what to drink long tea?
Do they drink it with sugar? Of course, a certain part of people, and all over the world, are very fond of this option, which is not traditional. A true connoisseur of a herbal drink will never sweeten it, so as not to lose subtle notes in the aroma, preferring other additives that decorate them:
- Milk - an Englishman, whether it is an ordinary resident of the country or the queen herself, will certainly pour milk into a cup. He will do this first, before pouring the tea leaves. So the two noble liquids will mix evenly, and the fragile porcelain will not crack from overheating;
- Lemon - today it is not known for certain where the tradition of adding lemon originated. There is an opinion that a similar method was invented in Russia. Even in the West there is an expression "Russian tea", referring to this particular method of preparing the drink.
- Desserts - In terms of food, the UK is similar to the CIS. Sweets and desserts are a must. In the old days, ladies were even allowed to loosen the corset during tea drinking, as having overeat, they fainted due to lack of oxygen. But on, this procedure is exclusively isolated and does not imply the presence of dishes on the table.
From all of the above, we can conclude that each country has its own values regarding the use of the drink under discussion. This does not mean that someone else has them better. It's just that each nation has its own preferences and goals, and good tea is always in place.
When buying tea in packaging, we are deprived of the opportunity to examine the contents, smell it, or at least evaluate the appearance. In this case, it remains only to be guided by the data that the manufacturer indicates on the label. On the packaging you can read about the type of tea, the country of origin, quality marks indicating the purity of origin and control over its production, region of growth, variety, expiration dates. Special designations in the letters of the Latin alphabet indicate the manufacturing technology, size and quality of tea leaves. You can often see the inscription "long tea" on the label. It will not be superfluous to find out what it is.
What is long tea
To understand what long tea means, you need to know that after processing, all tea is divided into three main groups:
- Baykhovy.
- Pressed.
- Extracted.
The last group includes instant drinks, which are produced in liquid or powder form. Pressed tea, as the name implies, is pressed. However, its main difference is not in the shape that it is given (tile, disc or brick), but in the quality of a tea leaf. The coarsest raw materials (shoots of tea bushes and mature lower leaves) are pressed into bricks, and crumbs of tea leaves and dust are used for pressing the tiles.
Long tea is the most common type, which is considered loose in our country, since its tea leaves are not connected with each other. But this interpretation of this term is not entirely accurate. The word "baikhovy" comes from the Chinese "bai hoa", which translates as "white eyelash". This is the name of the tips present in its composition - unblown leaf tea buds with white villi.
The more buds in tea, the more valuable and high-quality it is, the more refined its taste and aroma. In ancient times, Chinese tea traders sold their wares to Russian merchants, repeating the word "bai hoa" to emphasize its value. The merchants, without going into the intricacies of translation, realized that this word is almost synonymous with high quality.
In the future, all high-quality loose teas were called baikhov, in contrast to pressed teas, which were made from raw materials of inferior quality. This name has stuck to them to this day. Depending on the technology and methods of processing the tea leaf, black (or red), green, white and yellow long tea, as well as oolong tea, are distinguished. The quality and taste of each of these types still depends on the presence of tips in the composition, as well as on their quantity.
Long green tea
Long green tea is usually divided into two types: leaf and broken (cut). The second category differs from large leaf tea, which has whole leaves without damage. Green, unlike black tea, practically does not undergo fermentation (oxidation) and retains much more biologically active substances. Its infusion has a yellowish-green hue. The best is the drink with the lightest infusion.
Long tea
Black long tea differs from green tea by the method of production. With the existing method of processing and receiving, it goes through the stages of drying, rolling, fermentation and final drying. By the size of the tea leaves, it is divided into three types:
- sheet;
- broken;
- small.
The first category includes large leaf black tea. Broken, or, as it is also called, "broken", contains medium-sized tea leaves, and the small category includes seedings and crumbs. Each of these groups, in turn, is subdivided into categories depending on the quality of the raw materials that are used for production. The sheet is divided into four categories, the middle one is also into four, the broken one into two. Each of the categories is designated by the corresponding Latin abbreviation, in which all letters have their own meaning, for example:
- T. - "tippy", tea tips, thanks to which the drink acquires a delicate aroma and taste.
- S. - "special", selected, exclusive black long tea.
- O. - "orange", young whole twisted leaves.
- P. - "pekoe", mature leaves without tips.
- B. - "broken", a broken tea leaf.
- D. - tea crumbs.
Black long leaf tea has tea leaves of a very dark color, almost black. The more firmly the tea leaf is twisted, the higher its quality is considered.
Other species
In addition to green and black, other types of long tea are also produced:
- Yellow. In China, it is made from high quality raw materials and is called "imperial". It goes through the following processing stages: drying, steaming (light roasting), curling and drying. This type of tea belongs to the weakly fermented. Its infusion has a scent with floral notes and has a significant tonic effect.
- White. This species is considered elite and is made from tips and young leaves. Has an almost colorless infusion, rich aroma and rich taste.
- Oolong. It is obtained by withering, rolling, short fermentation, frying, re-rolling and drying.
Benefit and harm
The benefits and harms of long tea are due to its chemical composition. The most valuable substances found in tea leaves are:
- vitamins A, groups B, C, PP, K;
- essential oils;
- tannins;
- trace elements (iron, magnesium, potassium, etc.);
- polyphenols (tannins, catechins, etc.).
It should be noted that the absence of a fermentation stage preserves a large number of useful elements in green tea. It contains almost ten times more vitamin C than black, and almost twice as much catechins, which have strong antioxidant properties. As for the harm of the drink, this applies, first of all, to the content of caffeine. To minimize its effect on the body, you should not consume strong brewed tea in unlimited quantities.
Manufacturers
Black and green long packaged tea, like other types of tea, are produced today by many tea powers. The main manufacturers are:
- China. Green tea produced in the southeastern provinces of China has always been considered one of the best. Today he also confidently holds the palm.
- Sri Lanka. The best black long tea is produced here, which is known as Ceylon (since the former name of this island is Ceylon). High mountain tea produced in Sri Lanka is considered practically the standard of taste and quality.
- India. Indian tea may well compete with Ceylon tea in its taste, but it is slightly inferior to it.
Long tea is also grown in Georgia and southern Russia. Krasnodar variety "Extra" is produced from the leaves of high-mountain tea bushes, which are collected and processed by hand. It is considered the northernmost tea in the world. Recently, a packaged drink is gaining popularity, produced by many manufacturers. It can be either black or green. Often it is very small fractions of tea leaves, dust and crumbs placed in a bag. Manufacturers can also produce high-quality expensive long tea in bags, but this is much less common.
In the production of green tea (kok-tea), they strive to preserve the original properties of fresh tea leaves - its color due to chlorophyll, the content of theathanin, caffeine, ascorbic acid, etc. Therefore, the main process of green tea production is fixing the natural chemical composition in the leaf, which is achieved by steaming freshly harvested leaf with live steam to inactivate enzymes.
The technological scheme for producing green tea includes the following processes: steaming, drying, rolling and "green" sorting, drying, dry sorting.
The collected tea leaves are quickly transported to factories and immediately treated with superheated steam at a temperature of 100 ° C in special machines, where it is fed along a continuously moving conveyor belt. The time of steaming (blanching) the leaf is only 2 minutes, and the moisture content of the leaf increases. Therefore, it is dried at a temperature of 70 ° C for 2-3 hours. In this case, the tea leaf becomes soft and elastic, as when withering, and does not break in rollers, its bitterness and the smell of greenery decrease, and the humidity drops to 60%. Dried tea is subjected to double rolling on rollers in a shortened cycle. To reduce the amount of scrap, twisting is carried out without a press, but this leads to the formation of lumps, which are broken on the lumps during the next operation - "green" sorting. The sorted tea is sent for drying under the same conditions as for black tea. Green tea is dried to a moisture content of 3-5%.
The green tea production process ends with dry sorting with the division of the entire mass into three fractions - leaf tea, fine tea and crumbs.
Unlike black tea, green long tea lacks a specific tea taste and aroma and has a more pronounced astringency. Since uncontrollable biochemical processes do not occur in green tea, it contains significantly more sugars and vitamins. Therefore, when drinking green tea, additional sucrose is usually not added. This is a kind of drink of light green color with a golden hue, with a delicate aroma that combines the smell of freshly dried hay, withered strawberry leaves and rose or citrus petals. Due to the content of caffeine, various sugars and high P- and C-vitamin activity, green tea has a significantly more pronounced physiological activity. Therefore, recently abroad, green tea has been used as an anti-cancer drug.
Earlier in the USSR, green tea was produced only in Georgia, and it was consumed mainly in the republics of Central Asia as a tonic and refreshing drink. Currently, green tea is mainly sourced from overseas.
By the nature of the leaf, green tea is of the following types: L-1, L-2, L-3, M-2, M-3, seeded and crumbs. Green tea lacks the M-1 fraction (which is the most valuable in black tea), since in the process of rolling a steamed leaf, the first is almost not separated from the shoot
clean with a kidney. Green tea M-3 is produced in very small quantities.
On the basis of quality, green long tea at the factories of primary processing is divided into varieties: "bouquet", superior, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The moisture content of tea when shipped to tea-packing factories should not exceed 7%.
Often on the packaging of ordinary tea you can read "long tea". Have you ever wondered where this expression came from? 
There is a variety of indicators by which the whole variety of ready-made tea can be classified. Baykhovy in our Russian understanding means "loose", but this is not entirely true. The word appeared in our lexicon a long time ago - it comes from the Chinese phrase “ bai hoa", What means " white eyelash". The Chinese called this one of the components of tea - barely blossoming buds, which are covered with the smallest white villi. It is believed that the higher the percentage of such buds - according to the terminology borrowed from the British later, they are called tips - in tea, the higher its grade, the more aromatic and tasty the tea. Therefore, when Chinese traders sold tea with tips to Russian merchants and wanted to emphasize its high value (and at the same time not cheap price), they repeated "bai hoa".
Our tea traders, who did not know the Chinese language, decided that the mysterious "bai hoa" was synonymous with high quality, and they did not go into the reasons. Subsequently, the term "baikhovy" was used to refer to all loose teas, in order to distinguish it from so-called brick or slab tea, which at that time was inferior in quality - although loose, and pressed tea may include "bai hoa". That is, not any loose loose tea, but not only loose loose tea.
A similar confusion has occurred in Western tea terminology. There, too, there is a classification derived from the phrase "white eyelash" - orange pekoe(short for OP). More precisely, the word "pekoe" comes from it. Although at first glance it does not look like our Russian, this is due to the fact that Western countries and Russia purchased tea in different regions of the Middle Kingdom, each of which had its own dialect, and, accordingly, pronunciation.
The term "orange pekoe" was coined by Sir Thomas Lipton, a nineteenth century British tea mogul. Many people mistakenly think that "orange" means that the tea is flavored with orange oils. But this is either due to the color of the tea leaf before drying, or, much more likely, marketing considerations. The Dutch East India Company played a central role in importing tea to Europe, while the British then associated the Netherlands primarily with the Orange Dynasty (Orange in English). Probably Sir Thomas found it beneficial to “indirectly tie” his brand of high quality tea to the name of the main importer. And later, "orange pekoe" began to mean the high quality of tea and was determined by the size of the tea leaf - that is, as in Russian history, it meant the value of tea, and not the presence of tips in it. Moreover, the term "orange pekoe", despite its Chinese origin, is now used only to classify black teas from India and Sri Lanka.
