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Green tea
Present-day Russians consider the green tea to
be purely eastern exotics. This is not the truth. The matter is
that historically in Russia in 17-18 centuries people started drinking
the green tea. But then for no reason whatever it was replaced by
the black tea. It should be mentioned that nowadays in Europe and
in the USA people very often drink the green tea. It is connected
with its healing power. Russians just start getting used to green
tea, that’s why the contemporary market of green teas is still
very poor. Though their graded and gustatory variety is really wide.
The main aim of producing of the green tea is
to keep its healing power, natural biologically active matters of
the fresh leaves in such a way, for they could be released in a
cup with tea during the brew. And the whole technological series
of producing of the green tea serves the achieving of this aim.
After being gathered, fresh tea-leaves must be
slightly dried in the open air. The lesser the time of such drying
is, the closer this tea is to the features of the white tea. As
soon as the leaves become soft and withered, traditionally they
must be dried in the hot air. This procedure prevents the leaves
from excessive oxidation (i.e. fermentation), though some green
teas may be slightly fermented.
The process of drying of the green tea may be different (for example,
in the oven or on the open flame), that brings pleasant diversity
into the taste of the green tea.
After drying, the tea-leaves must be twined. This
procedure may also be fulfilled in different ways. This imparts
a unique form to many grades of the green tea.
The green tea may look like:
1. Slightly stranded, naturally dried, almost without twisting.
In China it is called “hunchi”. This tea resembles hayrick,
its unbroken leaves look like simple grass. In this category there
are also “flattened” teas (for example, “Loon
Tszin”). Their tea-leaves are almost not twisted at all. They
resemble bay leaves.
2. Strongly stranded in transverse axis of the leaves. Usually
these are all teas, that are marked as Gunpowder (when the Great
Britain had many colonies, gunpowder of those times resembled scales
or small balls). In China such teas are called “pearly”
(“tucha” or “tszucha”). In Japan many teas
“sencha” have this shape. Chinese “pearly”
teas vary a lot in dimension and quality. For example, Chinese Gunpowder
of high quality may be marked as “imperial” or “golden”,
and of low quality usually is marked as “twankay”.
3. Strongly stranded in longitudinal axis of the leaves. The leaves
of such tea have the shape of long, spirally twisted sticks, which
resemble wire. The typical example of this tea is Japan tea “spider
feet” (a separate grade of an elite tea “gjekuro”).
It is much easier to keep twisted leaves for a long time. At the
same time the best qualities of the tea are not lost. Twisting allows
to regulate the extraction of the essential oils and other active
constituents during the brewing.
The more twisted the tea-leaf is, the higher is its extra-activity.
Hence, the strongest and most saturated green teas are made from
the gunpowder, and the softest and most fragrant – from slightly
stranded leaves.
Twisting of the green teas is made manually, until the tea becomes
soaked with juice, dark, deep-green (sometimes with bluish or grey
tint). In general, it takes one hour to twist one portion of the
green tea.
In final stage of making of the green tea, after twisting, the
raw material must be dried. This stabilizes aroma and healing power
of the tea. The leaves acquire natural green color. Well-dried green
tea must contain no more than 4% of moisture. Dry tea must be naturally
green, any black discolor (brown, taupe color of the raw material)
means that the tea is defective or it was kept in the wrong conditions.
Specialists mention, that the color of a good green tea may vary
from bright green (almost emerald) to more faded, pistachio-colored.
Anyway, the color of the high-quality green tea must be fresh and
bright enough.
It is recommended to brew the green tea with hot water (60-90
degrees) for 1-3 minutes (some grades, as an exception, must be
brewed longer). After brewing the tea infusion may be chlorine and
goldish or deep green or yellow-green.
The good green tea always has the pronounced aromatic bouquet,
in which flower, citrus and grassy aromatic tints prevail. If the
green tea is kept for extra-long time, or if it’s of a low
quality, the aroma changes and the tea smells like the hay. It looses
the diversity of aromatic tints.
There is also much caffeine in the green tea. If it’s brewed
for a long time, it acquires bitter taste. The correctly made tea
contains many vitamins, trace elements and nutrients (for example,
plant protein).
Usually the green tea is produced and sold in the following varieties:
a) large-leaved,
b) small-leaved (broken),
c) powder,
d) brick-tea.
Small-leaved tea as a rule is very cheap, it has feebly marked
aromatic features and mediocre taste. The green teas of high quality
always have large leaves. But in Russia the price of these grades
of tea is rather high – 7 -700 $ per 100 gr. In China rarity
grades may cost about 400 $ per pound.
Powder green tea (mat-cha) is the Japan invention, it is made
for tea ceremonies. In Russia it is very difficult to find such
kind of tea. The brick-tea is also the western exotics (Tibet, Nepal).
Usually it is used for specific recipes of soup type – tea,
brewed in milk, with flour and butter.
China and Japan are the producers of good green tea. Specialists
say that those teas, which are grown in India, Ceylon and other
places, are trash. Something more or less worthwhile is grown in
Cangra (India).
The province Zhejiang is the main producer and exporter of the green
teas of average quality. Popular teas of rather high quality are
grown in the province Fujian. The elite green tea (gjekuro) is grown
in Udzhi, Kyoto district.
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