chinese tea

Chinese tea is a beverage, Chinese tea is a pass time, Chinese tea is a culture. Whatever you think Chinese tea is, Chinese tea is a life time of enjoyment.Chinese tea can be classified into five distinctive categories, white, green, oolong, black/red and post-fermented. Others add categories for red, scented and compressed teas. All of these come from varieties of the Camellia sinensis plant. Most Chinese teas are consumed in China and are not exported, except to Chinese-speaking communities in other countries. Green tea is the most popular type of tea consumed in China.

England, a country known for its tea in modern times, did not begin importing it from China until the 1600s. However, it soon caught on with both royalty and the lower classes, and Queen Elizabeth I formed the East India Tea Company to facilitate trade and create a British tea industry. Settlers in the Americas brought Chinese tea with them as early as 1670, often attempting to avoid the hefty taxes on British tea. This led to lengthy fights over tariffs, including the infamous Boston Tea Party.

It's not straight forward. Different Chinese tea books and tea drinkers have different lists and THE 10 Most Famous Chinese Teas list doesn't seem to exist. The following Chinese teas are ranked by the frequency they appear on 20 lists from various references.Tea as a drink prospered during the Tang Dynasty, and tea shops became popular. A major event of this time was the completion of Tea Classics, the cornerstone of Chinese tea culture, by Lu Yu, Tea Sage of China. 

 

 

 

 

This little book details rules concerning various aspects of tea, such as growth areas for tea trees, wares and skills for processing tea, tea tasting, the history of Chinese tea and quotations from other records, comments on tea from various places, and notes on what occasions tea wares should be complete and when some wares could be omitted.During the Tang Dynasty, a Japanese monk brought tea seeds from Zhejiang Province to Japan. 

 

Later in the Southern Song Dynasty, Zen masters brought tea procedures and tea wares from China to Japan, promoting the initiation of the Japanese tea ceremony. In the Song Dynasty, Arabic merchants exported tea from Quanzhou, Fujian Province. In the Ming Dynasty, tea was sold to Southeast Asian and South African countries. In 1610 tea went to Europe via Macau in a Dutch merchant ship. Thus tea became an international drink.