discrimination method
According to the degree of quality, black tea is divided into three types: high-quality tea, inferior tea and inferior tea. Where the quality characteristics meet the requirements of food quality and hygiene standards, it can be regarded as high-quality tea; those with serious smoke, sour, stale, musty, sun-exposed and other odors, especially those contaminated by pesticides and fertilizers, are called inferior tea. Light pollution or treatment by certain technical means can be improved, that is, inferior tea. In this way, black tea lovers should understand and master the identification method, and need to borrow assistants, eyes, nose, mouth and other sensory systems for comprehensive evaluation.
(1) Hand grasping
First of all, use your hands to feel the weight, tightness and thickness of the black tea strips. The strips of high-quality black tea are relatively tight, and those that are heavy are better, and those that are rough and light are worse. The main purpose of touching the tea leaves with your hands is to understand the dryness of the dried black tea. Take a tea strip at will. Dry tea usually feels thorny and easy to break. Rub it hard with your fingers to form powder. If it is a damp tea, it does not have this characteristic. However, when touching the tea leaves, do not grab them too much to avoid the sweat on your hands seeping into the tea leaves and causing the tea leaves to get damp.
(2) Eye view
Grab a handful of dried tea and put it on a white paper or white porcelain plate. Turn the double-hand-held plate clockwise or counterclockwise to observe whether the shape of the dried black tea is uniform, whether the color is consistent, and some need to see if it has gold. The tight knots are complete and clean, there is no broken tea or less broken tea, and the color is dark and oily (some teas will also show gold). It is better to have coarse and loose cords, messy colors, broken teas, and more powdered teas. There are even inclusions such as tea seeds, tea fruits, old branches, old leaves, sick and insect leaves, weeds, branches, metal objects, and insect corpses. This kind of tea is regarded as inferior tea or inferior tea. In addition, it can also be distinguished by looking at the color of the soup and the bottom of the leaves after brewing. The soup color of high-quality black tea is red, clear and bright, with a complete unfolding and uniform leaf bottom, and a soft and tender texture; the soup color of secondary tea and inferior tea is a slightly darker, turbid color, while inferior tea with a musty taste shows the characteristics of undeveloped leaf bottom and dull color.
(3) nasal sniffing
That is, the human sense of smell is used to identify whether black tea has smoke, sour, stale, musty, sun-exposed and other odors. The dry tea of high-quality black tea has a sweet fragrance, which will have a pleasant aroma of sweet and mellow after brewing, while the inferior tea and inferior tea are not obvious or mixed with odors. In fact, during the processing of black tea, if the processing conditions (such as temperature, humidity, etc.) and processing technology (such as withering, fermentation, etc.) are not properly controlled, or the finished black tea is improperly stored, some odors that are not conducive to quality will be produced. However, some unpleasant odors are less abundant, and it is not easy to detect when smelling dry tea. At this time, it is necessary to identify them by brewing. It is found that tea with sour, stale, and musty flavors does not have a strong odor. You can try to improve the quality later by baking treatment.
(4) Taste
When the appearance, dryness, color, aroma, etc. of the dry tea meet the purchase criteria, you can take a number of teas and put them in the mouth to chew and distinguish, and further understand the quality according to the taste. In addition, you can also make a comment by opening a soup. The taste of high-quality black tea is mainly sweet and alcoholic, small-variety black tea has a mellow and sweet taste, and Gongfu black tea is mainly fresh, strong, alcoholic, and refreshing. These characteristics are not obvious in the second-taste tea, while the taste of inferior tea is strong and bitter, and even has a peculiar smell. [8]
Precautions
First, choose the brand: consumers buy tea from the origin on the market, most of which are flavors that have been prepared by the manufacturer, rather than pure tea.
Second, the expiration date. When purchasing black tea, it is necessary to pay more attention to the manufacturing date and expiration date to avoid buying expired black tea.
Third, choose the packaging method. Most of the packaging forms we see are tea bags or tin cans. If you want to drink origin tea or specialty tea, it is best to buy canned black tea.
Fourth, understand the production area: Whether it is Ceylon black tea or Kenya black tea, they are all collectively referred to as the origin. The tea produced in different tea areas of each origin and the preparation methods are different, and the taste is also different.
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