Where do the various aromas in tea come from?
Bitter and Astringent Taste
Tea inherently contains a bitter taste, and if there is a bitter and astringent flavor, it mainly depends on whether it dissipates quickly after being tasted. If it does not disperse, then this tea is likely not a successful one. The main reasons for a bitter and astringent taste are tender fresh leaves, insufficient sun-withering, improper processing, or summer and summer heat teas.
Grassy Taste
The grassy taste is an original flavor found in natural plants. The presence of a grassy taste in tea is mainly due to insufficient sun-withering, processing, or pan-firing. There are other reasons as well:
1. Excessive use of nitrogen fertilizer during cultivation management.
2. Improper sun-withering or stirring during the tea-making process.
3. Indoor withering at too low a room temperature, high humidity, causing poor water loss in the leaves.
4. Picking overly tender tea leaves or those with heavy dew, or improper stirring during processing leading to water accumulation within the leaves.
Scorched Taste
The scorched taste in tea is likely due to improper pan-firing or baking. During the pan-firing process, if the temperature is too high or the time is too long, the finished product will have a scorched taste. Similarly, during baking, if the temperature is too high or increased too quickly without frequent stirring, a scorched taste often results.
Stuffy Taste
The stuffy taste in oolong tea can be explained in three ways: stuffy yellow taste, water-stuffy taste, and red-stuffy taste. Stuffy yellow taste refers to fresh leaves that have accumulated heat, steamed during baking, or undergone vacuum formation due to prolonged rolling or wrapping. Water-stuffy taste refers to dew-soaked, rain-soaked, or piled-up leaves that were not spread out in time or cooled properly before pan-firing, or where fermentation was insufficient during processing. Red-stuffy taste refers to the flavor produced when the leaves are left in the wrapping bag for too long during rolling.
Moldy Taste
If tea is stored improperly for a long time, absorbing moisture from the air and fostering fungal growth, it becomes damp and develops a moldy taste, losing its unique aroma characteristics.
Sour Taste
For some fermented teas, after pan-firing, rolling, and initial drying, they need to be left to cool, allowing for further fermentation, before being rolled into balls and dried again the next day. If, during the further fermentation stage, the initial-dried leaves contain too much moisture, microbial activity leads to a sour taste. Of course, a sour taste caused by the fresh flavor of the tea broth, similar to the taste of sour fruits, is not included in this category.
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