Thousands of years of human tea history, there have been a large number of tea categories and tens of thousands of tea names, so that some people say: It is too difficult to remember tea names and understand tea classification. How can we effectively grasp and memorize such a large number of Chinese tea and understand the general situation of Chinese tea?
We can start from understanding the logic of tea classification and naming.
There are many "colors" in the name of tea, such as "Anji white tea", "Jinyun Yellow bud" and "Black da hong pao". People usually think that Anji white tea is white tea, Jinyun Yellow bud is yellow tea, and Black Dahongpao is black tea. However, this is a misunderstanding. The color in the name of tea is not equal to the category of tea.
There are many ways to classify tea, some of which are classified according to the season of tea picking, such as spring tea, summer tea and autumn tea; some of which are classified according to the place of origin, such as "Qihong" (Qimen black tea), which is produced in Qimen County, Anhui Province, "Dianhong" (Yunnan black tea), which is produced in Yunnan Province, "Wulu" (Wuyuan green tea), which is produced in Jiangxi Province; some of which are classified according to the market, which is produced in Inner Mongolia Tea for sale, export, border and overseas Chinese, etc.
All the above classification methods have certain basis and rationality, and have certain practical value, but they all have many defects and are easy to be confused. For example, it can be divided into export-oriented tea and domestic oriented tea according to the sales market, but it is not easy to classify some teas that can be sold both at home and abroad. Moreover, with the changes of the times, the concepts of domestic and export oriented tea are also changing.
Now most tea scholars and tea workers agree with the following view: the classification of tea is mainly based on the principle of tea processing, processing methods, changes in the main components of tea processing, the quality characteristics of tea and other factors, as well as the habits of production, trade and consumption. According to this principle, Chinese tea can be divided into the following two parts and ten categories.
Basic tea and reprocessed tea are two parts of tea. The basic tea can be further divided into Green tea, black tea, white tea, brown tea, yellow tea and green tea. The Reprocessed tea can be further divided into Flower tea, pressed tea, health tea and fruit tea.