Why tea is called "tea"

We are accustomed to the fact that on the packaging of tea, write "loose" and rarely think about what the word means. Meanwhile, connoisseurs of tea drinks pay attention to this characteristic, because it is directly related to the quality and taste characteristics of the contents of the tea packaging.

All the collected tea leaves, regardless of country of origin and the manufacturer, certainly machining. There are three kinds of impact on the raw material on which tea and divided into groups: extruded, extracted, and tea.

Extruded tea is the dried leaves and pressed into the tiles. This kind of tea is particularly rich, tart flavor with a slight tobacco flavor. Pressed teas can be stored for a long time and not lose its taste properties and aroma.

Usually pressing subjected to the roughest part of the tea harvest the young shoots and Mature leaves of the lower branches of a Bush and tiny leaves. Despite great taste, this tea all relate to products of low quality, except for some postfermentation species such as Chinese Puer.

Extracted teas are produced in the form of liquid extracts, or in powder form. They are sold in bottles or in a packaged form. This convenient option, because it is ready in a few minutes and does not require steeping. Therefore, these teas do not have very delicate taste and richly flavored flavors, there are still a lot of fans.

The name "tea" comes from the Chinese phrase "Bai Hoa", which means "white hair". It is believed that the ancient Chinese called the first blossoming tea leaves emerge from the buds with a thin white fibers. The number of such barely blossoming buds in the tea mixture depends on its quality — the more, the better and more aromatic tea.

Centuries ago, when the Chinese tea merchants offered their goods to the Russian merchants, they kept saying "Bai Hoa", telling about the origin of tea. But our merchants who are not familiar with the nuances of the Chinese language, were convinced that this means the highest quality of tea. This mysterious word, "tea", they called tea, offering it in their shops.

In our day tea called tea, composed of individual leaves. This is the name can wear black and green, red or yellow tea.

Production technology black loose tea is quite complicated. First, the leaves within 4-8 hours dried in a special apparatus at the temperature of 32-40°C. After that, the beans are dried to remove excess lagi. It makes the leaves pliable and soft. The following stages of processing become leaf rolling in the rolling and fermentation.

Green tea is produced a little differently. In the processing chain is missing the wilting of the leaves and fermentation. Then the tea leaves are steamed at a temperature of 170-180°C from 3 to 5 minutes. After that, the green tea leaves are dried and rolled into the rollers, as well as the leaves black.

No less confusing classification of coffee, which differ in taste not only by species but also depending on the country of origin.