5. June 2017

Scented Tea


Scented tea

Scented tea, also known as scented tea, is a kind of reprocessed tea unique to China. Taking advantage of the characteristics that tea is good at absorbing peculiar smell, it stuffs the fragrant flowers with the new tea. After the tea absorbs the fragrance, the dried flowers are screened out. The flower tea has strong fragrance and deep color of tea soup. Scented tea can be subdivided into flower herbal tea and flower fruit tea. Drinking leaves or flowers is called flowery herbal tea, such as lotus leaves, glutinous rice fragrant leaves and stevia leaves. Those who drink its fruit are called flower and fruit tea, such as fig, lemon, hawthorn, siraitia grosvenorii, mandarin, bitter groud and tea fruit. It smells fragrant and has health preserving effect. Scented tea is mainly made from green tea, black tea or oolong tea with fragrant flowers as raw materials. According to the different varieties of fragrant flowers used, it can be divided into jasmine tea, Magnolia tea, osmanthus tea, etc., of which jasmine tea has the largest output.

Blended tea has a very long history in China, but in different periods, the name contains different contents and forms of expression. It can be traced back to the cake tea and tea porridge in the Three Kingdoms period (220-280). When tea was introduced to other countries, many blended tea were also derived, such as British black tea with milk and sugar, green tea with mint and lemon in Asia and Africa. In China’s traditional tea culture, green tea, black tea, oolong tea, black tea and other teas can be used as the basis for blending tea, with a wide range of accessories, including fruits, grains, herbs and even spices. These accessories not only enhance the flavor and taste of tea, but also have certain health care functions, which are popular with the public. Traditional blended tea has obvious regional characteristics. Ethnic groups in some Asian regions, such as Mongolia, China Xinjiang, Russia, etc., drink milk tea, ethnic minorities in Tibet, Qinghai, Yunnan, Sichuan province and other regions in China drink butter tea, and mountain people in Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi and other regions drink Lei Cha.

 


 

Osmanthus Oolong and Black Tea

Osmanthus tea has the effects of Warming Yang Qi, expelling toxins in the body, relieving cough and resolving phlegm, maintaining health and moistening lung. In the processes of collection, preparation, , production and packaging, it strictly goes through 8 processes, such as tea material preparation, fresh osmanthus harvest, tea material scenting, flower heat dissipation, screening flower residue, drying and re drying, packaging and quality storage. The real estate system is most prosperous in Guilin, Guangxi, Xianning, Hubei, Chengdu, Sichuan and Chongqing. Osmanthus oolong is a traditional export product of Anxi, Fujian, the hometown of Tieguanyin. It is mainly sold to Hong Kong, Macao, Southeast Asia and Western Europe. Osmanthus oolong is mainly prepared from summer and autumn tea of that year or the next year.

 


 

Jasmine Green Tea, Bitan Piaoxue

Jasmine Green Tea 茉莉花绿茶 [mò li huā lǜ chá] is one of the ten most famous teas in China. Jasmine Tea is made from Green or Pouchong (Chinese Green) tea leaves that are scented with jasmine flowers. Jasmine flowers are harvested during day-time and stored in a cool place until night. During night-time, the flowers bloom with full fragrance, layered over tea leaves during a scenting process. The quality of Jasmine tea is determined by the quality of green tea used as its base and the effectiveness of the scenting. Jasmine tea scented through a series of technological processes has the effects of calming nerves, relieving depression, strengthening spleen and Qi, anti-aging and improving body immunity. It is a healthy drink.

Bitan Piaoxue, flower tea, is produced in Mount Emei, Sichuan Province. Bitan Piaoxue tea is named after acrostic, Xu Jinhua, a famous tea man, is the creator of Bitan Piaoyue. He created and built the brand of jasmine tea Bitan Piaoyue, the tea is also called “Xu Gong tea”. The first-class fine green tea buds are selected before the Ming Dynasty, the fresh jasmine with excellent quality and beautiful shape is provided. It is hand operated and scented by exquisite craftsmanship. Flowers are selected by hand, so they are as tender as snow and clear.

The time of picking jasmin flowers is in the afternoon of a fine day. Pick the white, crystal clear and budding buds, and choose the flowers before they open, so that the tea can be scented carefully by hand while it is fresh, flowers keep beautiful in color and shape. When brewing, like snow falling from the sky, a layer of snow is floating in a clear green pond, the color is contrasted, elegant and moderate, this tea is not only pure and delicious, aesthetic, but also has ornamental value. This tea is very pleasing to the eye. Sip the fine tea, teeth and tongue are fragrant, green tea fragrance, jasmine soul.

Bi – Green the color of tea, Tan – Pond tea bowl, Piao – Floating petals floating on the water, fragrance overflowing, Xue – Snow white Jasmine. The color is fresh and transparent green, with white petals floating on it. The fragrance of tea and flowers is light, but it stays between lips and teeth for a long time.

 


 

Mandarin Peel Pu’er, White, Oolong and Black Tea

Mandarin Peel Pu’er 柑普 [gān pǔ] Tea is made of mandarin peels from Xinhui of Guangdong Province and ripe Pu’er tea from Yunnan Province, through special producing processes. It combines the fruit flavor of Xinhui Mandarin and the taste of Yunnan Pu ‘er tea, which makes citrus peel (i.e. tangerine peel) and tea absorb each other’s essence, forming a unique flavor and a unique taste. Its health care function has the effect of Xinhui tangerine peel and Pu’er tea. Regulating qi, invigorating spleen and stomach, eliminating dampness and phlegm, eliminating accumulation and resolving stagnation. The combination of Pu’er tea and Pu’er tea can be regarded as a unique combination in terms of both expression and connotation. Its health care effect naturally has both advantages: it has the functions of strengthening spleen and stomach, clearing away heat and toxin, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, reducing fat and weight, nourishing beauty, anti arteriosclerosis, anti-aging and sobering up.

The materials of Xinhui tangerine peel and Yunnan Pu’er are perfectly combined. They are naturally made. The older they are, the more fragrant they are. Tangerine peel and Pu’er are both excellent health care products. Both of them are famous for their fragrance, efficacy and value as they age. Tangerine Pu tea is natural in appearance and connotation, which can be called a unique. On its soup surface is usually covered by oil droplets, its fruity and aging aroma is rich, and its flavor is smooth and mellow with a sweet aftertaste.

Sanbao tea is composed of tangerine peel, white tea and straw grass. This combination should be familiar to people in the Pearl River Delta. It is basically adapted from the famous sanbaozha in Guangdong, replacing the salty olives in sanbaozha with white tea. The delicate and elegant taste of white tea has always been integrated with the mellow and versatile flavor of Xinhui tangerine peel. In addition to the straw aroma of glutinous rice straw grass, three kinds of aroma of Sanbao complement each other, and the taste is unique.

 


 

Bitter Gourd Oolong

Bitter Gourd Oolong is innovative reprocessed Oolong tea. How to produce them? scoop out the center of gourds, put aging oolong tea inside and bake for 72 hours at a relative low temperature. Bitter gourd contains a variety of nutrients, such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins A, B1, B2 and C, minerals calcium, phosphorus and iron. Among them, vitamin C is the most abundant, which is very beneficial to the skin. In addition, vitamin B17 has the function of killing tumor cells. It is a good anti-cancer food, and its quinine is quite effective for malaria. Bitter gourd contains polypeptides (25mg polypeptides per hundred grams of bitter gourd), which can significantly reduce blood glucose, regulate blood lipid and improve immunity. Therefore, nutritionists and doctors recommend it as a good remedy for diabetes. The middle-aged and elderly people with diabetes can take mountain bitter gourd tea for a long time. It can inhibit and regulate blood lipid, blood pressure, blood glucose and obesity.

 


 

Glutinous rice fragrant leaves Pu’er

Glutinous rice fragrance – Nuomixiang (Semnostachya menglaensis H. P. Tsui) is distributed in Yunnan Province, China, growing in sheltered woodland grassland. It is named because of its strong aroma of glutinous rice. Blending glutinous rice scented leaves into Yunnan Pu’er tea, it is pressed into Pu’er raw tea and cooked Shu tea with glutinous rice aroma. It is one of the most favorite traditional drinks of Dai people. It contains many kinds of aromatic components such as vanillin alcohol and amino acids beneficial to human body. It can be used for flavoring, and can also be used as a tea ingredient. It has the functions of clearing away heat, detoxicating, nourishing the face, resisting the decay, and invigorating the kidney and strengthening the stomach.

The most commonly used and traditional method is to mix the dried glutinous rice leaves and Pu’er tea according to a certain proportion and then press them into shape. The glutinous rice fragrance produced by this method is directly obtained by brewing glutinous rice leaves, which is similar to the common tangerine peel Pu’er tea in the market. The dry pieces of glutinous rice leaves can be clearly seen in the pressed tea, most of which are bowl shape tea. This method is also more expensive. Another way is to make use of the absorption of tea, through smoking glutinous rice leaves to absorb the aroma of glutinous rice in the tea, so people can’t see the leaves of glutinous rice leaves in the tea, but there is a delicate smell of glutinous rice note, which can not only maintain the appearance of the tea, but also retain the characteristics of the more fragrant the tea is!

 


 

Tea Fruit Shell

Cha Guo Ke, Tea Fruit shell, a kind of Liubao tea, is one of the traditional Chinese tea products. The fruit of Liubao tea tree can not mature until late October of the next year after flowering in November. The peel of the fruit is brown, kidney shaped or spherical, and a few are long. In the past, most thrifty tea farmers were reluctant to leave the tea sprouts and middle leaves that could be exchanged for money for their own consumption. Therefore, most of them made Lao Cha Po or this kind of tea fruit shell to drink. Every year, the tea farmers pick and sun- dry the tea fruit. Because the dried tea fruit cracks, most of the tea seeds are separated from the shell. Because the tea seeds are bitter, most of the tea farmers choose to only take the shell and keep it for a certain year. Especially when the weather is hot, a large teapot of tea fruit is cooked and put in a big bowl to cool down. When farmers come back from working in the field at the head of the village, they can drink it and feel immediately comfortable and refreshing all over. In particular, some of the good quality, stored for a certain period of time of tea fruit shell, has a very unique fragrance, soup color red as amber, taste mellow refreshing, it has a charm!
After brewing, the aroma is attractive, the color is yellow red, especially good to drink. In addition, the shell of tea fruit also contains lignin, tea saponins, amino acids, fat, vitamins and other substances, which can relieve fat, improve greasiness, promote metabolism, and antioxidation.

 


 

Wudang Wild Kudzuvine Roots

One kind of Herbal Tea 花草茶 [huā cǎo chá], roots of wild kudzu vine 葛根 [gé gēn] are harvested in Octobers at high altitude of the Wudang Mountain areas, which has 13 kinds of amino acids, microelements (iron, calcium, zinc, selenium and germanium) and multivitamins, as well as puerarin and daidzein etc.. In China, kudzuvine roots are allowed to use for both food and medicine by the National Ministry of Health.  Once the wild kudzuvine roots are taken out of soil, there are only 72 hours to finish washing, cutting, firing and drying procedures in order to keep roots’ natural color. After sterilizations,  kudzuvine roots are blended with poria cocos, medlar and sealwort, chrysanthemum  in proportion, then   put into infusing bags and sealed into packages.

 


 

Honeysuckle Tea

Honeysuckle tea  is blended with honeysuchkle flowers 金银花  [jīn yín huā], cogongrass roots, chrysanthemum and jujube in proportion,   it has  a function of reducing weight, restraining and killing the throat pathogenic bacterias, for the elders and children, it  has an anti-infection effect. Regularly drinking a honeysuckle tea, it could help the treatment and rehabilitation of throat sores, obesity, liver heat-syndrome,  liver-heat type of hypertension.

 


 

Wudang wild sealwort

Sealwort 黄精 [huáng jīng] rootstocks  is  edible and also a traditional Chinese medicine,    tonifying spleen and kidney,  moistening lung.  Springs and autumns are harvest seasons,  rootstocks could be  processed many ways  by daoist  medicines   in Mount. Wudang or  directly dried. Sealwort broth, tea  and   medicinal liquor are  popular.

 


 

Wudang Wild Glossy Ganoderma

Glossy Ganoderma 灵芝 [líng zhī]   is a kind of fungi growing in humid areas under low light or no light conditions, best  harvest season is  in winters (Jan.-Feb.), wild ones are most in deep forests at  Wudang. It helps   invigorating qi for tranquilization, relieving cough and asthma, prolonging life.    Daoist culture  worships  immortals, because of Glossy Ganoderma’s rare   and  medicinal values, it has been  honored as an immortal herb.

 


 

Wudang Wild Rhizoma Gastrodiae

Rhizoma Gastrodiae 天麻 [tiān má],  rootstock is uesd  as  a precious traditional Chinese medicine, together with Glossy Ganoderma help headaches and  insomaia.  It could be cooked with meat, fish or rice… these herbal cuisines  or medicined diets have also   certain medicinal function and health care function.

 


Babao covered bowl tea

Babao covered bowl tea 八宝盖碗茶 [bā bǎo gài wǎn chá]  is the most popular tea among Hui Nationalities in Dingxia, China.  Hui people are used to drink  tea mixed with different herbs and spices all the year round, for example, red jujube, Chinese wolfberry, walnut kernel, longan,   sesame seed, raisin and preserved fruit… Covered bowl should be heated up first by hot water, and then put tea and other ingredients in and pour boiling water in, leave the cover on for 2-3 minutes. Adding different sugars could   be also a good option, crystal sugar,  brown sugar or white sugar.

 


 

Dendrobe Tea

Fresh dendrobe 石斛 [shí hú]   tea is made from fresh   stems  juice, dry stems could be also used for tea. It is also a  traditional Chinese medicine, <Compendium of Materia Medica 本草纲目>   records that, dendrobe helps  to whet the appetite, nourish yin,  clear heat and promote the secretion of saliva or body fluid.

 


 

Crab Pincers

Crab pincers 螃蟹脚 [páng xiè jiǎo] as a type of Pu’er tea are grass parasites on hundreds years old ancinet tea trees, they have similar characterestics and brewing methods of Pu’er tea, and even greater health benefits and more endurable than Pu’er. A rare and fascinating type of tea, mostly came from the Jingmai Mountain.Since loose tea looks like crab pincers, people gave the name. Sunlight-dried crab pincers are similar to raw Pu’er in color and turn brownish-red with perservation. Tea soup is light yellow, mellow with a refreshing and sweet aftertaste. Brewed leaves are brownish-red, tough and not easily broken.

 


 

Wudang Wild Tremella

Tremella 银耳 [yín ěr]  is a kind of semi-transparent white fungus

 


Wudang Codonopsis Pilosula

Codonopsis pilosula  党参 [dǎng shēn] is the root of hairy asiabell