Chinese Tea 101

[Zanaspus]

Originally Posted by Steelergar

What do you guys know about Chinese Tea because I don't know squat?

What do you want to know exactly? 99.8% of the tea I drink anymore is from China.

A (hopefully) short primer:

Blacks. These are good, but IMO, this is not where China shines. Remember, they invented tea drinking a couple millenia ago, and they never got around to this very much until the English demanded it. They will not taste like what you're used to. Major types:

Keemun or Qimen; Very small whole leaf with a nice punchy flavor.
Yunnan gold; Very peppery. An acquired taste that once acquired can become addiction.
Lapsang Souchong; Pine smoked tea. Some love it. Not for me.

Greens. This is where it all started. Chinese greens run the gamut of all tastes and processing methods (apart from steamed, where the Japanese shine). Too many varieties to go through (or know for that matter), but some you're likely to encounter with some digging;

Dragonwell or Long Jing; a flatleaf pan fired green that is ubiquitous in ints incarnations. From cheap knockoffs to really expensive shining examples. Very "nutty" and addictive.
Green Snail Spring or Bi Lo Chun; Curled tender leaves that are very difficult to brew well. When done so, a lovely flowery cup.
Eyebrow or Mao Feng; More curly light tasting and nice.
Literally hundreds more.

Oolong. Where the Chinese are kings (ignore what folks say about Taiwan ). Again, lots of varieties, but three major groups. Anxi are lightly oxidised "ball" type oolongs. Dancong are lightly oxidised with some roast straight leaves. And Wuyi (the king in my book) Varying stages of oxidation but generally highly roasted.

Iron goddess of mercy or Ti Kuan Yin is the most famous Anxi.
Feng Huang Dancong for Dancongs
Big Red Robe or Da Hong Pao is the most famous (and a favorite of mine) Wuyi.

Finally is Pu-Erh. Tea that is generally compressed into a cake. It comes in two types; Traditional or Sheng(unfermented) is green tea pressed into a cake. If you hear about people going nuts for 70 year old tea, this is probably it. A recent addition is cooked or Shu. This is pre-fermented in an effort to make it taste like the old stuff. Epic fail IMHO, but some like the taste of dirt and really enjoy the stuff.

FWIW, I drink about 90% Sheng Pu-erh and 10% Wuyi oolong.

Questions? Ask. I can attempt to answer or at least point to resources.

[SeanGAR]

Originally Posted by Zanaspus

Oolong. Where the Chinese are kings (ignore what folks say about Taiwan ). Again, lots of varieties, but three major groups. Anxi are lightly oxidised "ball" type oolongs. Dancong are lightly oxidised with some roast straight leaves. And Wuyi (the king in my book) Varying stages of oxidation but generally highly roasted.

Iron goddess of mercy or Ti Kuan Yin is the most famous Anxi.
Feng Huang Dancong for Dancongs
Big Red Robe or Da Hong Pao is the most famous (and a favorite of mine) Wuyi.

I've had some good semi fermented teas from mainland, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I don't find them better than tea from Taiwan. I like lightly roasted and fermented tea, so I gravitate to baozhong (pouchong) teas from northern taiwan. High mountain Alishan can be quite nice as well.

As you probably know, Tu Guan Yin is a different tea bush than most other teas, and I've found some chinese tea labeled TGY seems to be from the more common chinshing bush, based on taste. I've also had lightly roasted TGY from china which shocked me the first time I tried it. They call it jade TGY and it is quite different from what the taiwanese make in mucha. I've spoken with several tea shop owners in Taipei who say some people call tea TGY that is not made from that bush. Not a big fan of jinshing (xin juan), but I've had nice tea from cinnamon bush tea.

In any case, good tea is good tea and I've had good tea from mainland and Taiwan. I haven't found anything from mainland (and I've tried most of the ones you mention) that quite rings my bell, although I did have a monkey picked jade TGY from jing tea ship 2 years ago that was really nice and a TGY one of my Chinese students brought over for me was likewise quite nice, but the roasting is much less than I expect for a Taiwanese TGY.