Welcome

First of all, thank you so much for visiting my blog. This blog is specially made for tea culture lovers out there. There will be information and discussions about tea and tea pots... So do drop by often to have a nice and relaxing discussion about tea... I believe we can make great friends through tea and sharings... If you have any suggestions, comments or questions, do post it here and I will try my best to get back to you... Thank you and have a nice day...

Friday, March 23, 2007

Savouring tea

When you savour a pot or a cup of tea, what do you look for? I personally have looks into a few specific areas:
1) Fragrance
2) Colour of the tea
3) Taste

But for savouring compressed tea and pu-er I like to add in
4) Texture (Smoothness)
5) Aftertaste

Actually, pu-er is a very special and different type of tea that I will discuss seperately because not only the two extra areas when savouring, the fragrance, colour and taste that we look for is also very different from other types of tea.

So, what do we actually look for when savouring tea? My habit of savouring tea is:
I will first appreciate the fragrance of the tea...

Different types of tea have a very different and distinctive smell. For example, green tea generally smell like fresh plants. However, different type of green tea some characteristic differences. For example, Long Jing will have a very mild bean smell while Bi Luo Chun smells like fresh cut grass.

Oolong tea generally we can say they have the smell of flowers or fruits. Oolongs like Jasmine has the smell of jasmine flower, Tie Guan Yin has a very special flower smell. Some teochew tea has a very mild lychee fruit smell.. However, when savouring the smell of oolong tea, a utensil called "wen siang pei" can be used so that we can appreciate the smell better. And the smell will be the strongest in the first brew...

Next, i will look at the colour of the tea. There are a few information that you can get by looking at the colour of the tea itself. One simple one would be wether you have brewed your tea properly as in the time and ammount of tea leaves used. You can also assess the quality of the tea leaves, a good quality tea leave should be able to give a clear tea... If the brewed tea looks turbid, there may be some problem with the tea... Green tea should give a very light green with slight yellow colour... Oolong however, gives a more brown reddish colour.

Then comes the interesting part... The taste... The taste of each and every kind of tea is very distinctive and special... To me, there is no good or bad taste... There is only like or dislike... So the taste is actually very subjective... So I will just give a few basic taste that the tea should have.. Green tea like Long Jing have a very special bean taste... Something like sunflower seed. Bi Luo Chun have the taste of very fresh and mild fresh cut grass...

Oolong however, also depends on which type. Jasmine will have a mild jasmine taste, Tie Guan Yin will depend on the grade.. But generally they have a very special flower taste. Most teochew tea have a characteristic mild lychee taste...

However, one important point to take note.... The taste will change with subsequent brews... How the taste change will be discussed in more detail in future posts... So in the time being, enjoy your favourite cup of tea.... Yam sheng!!! hehe.....

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