Due to the development of history and the spread of tea art, the title of "Longjing" has gradually become a way of making tea. The Longjing tea mentioned in this paper is limited to Longjing tea produced in and around Hangzhou West Lake Scenic Area, which is the "real Longjing tea" generally recognized by consumers at present-West Lake Longjing.
* Longjing tea identification
To judge the quality of Longjing tea, except the physical and chemical examination of its health indicators, other items must rely on sensory evaluation. According to five factors: appearance, soup color, aroma, taste and leaf bottom. Appearance evaluation includes color, shape, tenderness (grade) and freshness, which is the focus of evaluation.
First, the grade standard of Longjing tea
In the past, West Lake Longjing tea was divided into special grade and first grade 1-10 * *1,in which the special grade was divided into special grade1,special grade 2 and special grade 3, and the rest grades were divided into five grades, and the "middle grade" of each grade was set with grade standard samples. After a little simplification, it was changed to special grade and grades 1 to 8, and * * * was divided into 43 grades. At 1995, the grade of West Lake Longjing Tea was further simplified, with only super grade (divided into super grade 2 and super grade 3), from grade 1 to grade 4.
Second, the quality characteristics of Longjing tea
The super West Lake Longjing and Zhejiang Longjing in spring tea have flat and smooth appearance, sharp seedlings, longer buds than leaves, light green color and no fuzz on the body surface; The soup is light green (yellow) and bright; Fragrant or tender chestnut fragrance, but some teas are highly fragrant; The taste is refreshing or mellow; The leaves are light green and intact. With the decline of other grades of Longjing tea, the appearance color changed from light green to turquoise and then to dark green, the tea body changed from small to large, and the tea strips changed from smooth to rough. The fragrance changed from tender to thick, and the fourth-grade tea began to have a rough taste; The bottom of the leaf changes from bud to opposite leaf, and the color ranges from light yellow to turquoise to yellowish brown.
Longjing tea in summer and autumn is dark green or dark green in color, with large body and no fuzz on the body surface. The color of the soup is Huang Liang, fragrant and thick, thick and slightly astringent, with bright yellow leaves. The overall quality is much worse than that of spring tea of the same level.
Machine-made Longjing tea is now fried by multi-functional machine, and also by machine and artificial assistance. Machine-made Longjing tea is mostly rod-shaped, incomplete, dark green in color, and the overall quality is worse than that of manual frying under the same conditions. This website does not recommend this kind of tea.
Third, the evaluation content of Longjing tea
The evaluation content of Longjing tea is similar to other famous green teas, mainly including dry evaluation of appearance, soup color, aroma, taste, wet evaluation of leaf bottom, and the distinction of Longjing tea producing areas.
1, appearance review
West Lake Longjing and Zhejiang Longjing are very similar in appearance, and even some flat teas fried with fresh leaves of Longjing in other tea areas (such as Longjing 43 and Longjing Long Leaves) are difficult to distinguish from West Lake Longjing, which brings great difficulty in judging the origin of Longjing tea, which is also the reason for the confusion in the identification of Longjing tea in the market at present.
The basic characteristics of Longjing tea appearance are: flat, non-forked buds and leaves, no fuzz on the body surface, and relatively green and moist.
2, tea color evaluation
The soup color of high-grade tea is light green and yellow, and the soup color of middle and low-grade tea and tide tea is yellowish brown. The origin of Longjing tea is not easy to distinguish from the color of the soup, and there is no need to make a hard distinction.
3, aroma and taste evaluation
The early spring tea produced in meijiawu and Shifeng of Xihu District, if the tea-making technology is normal, there is a certain difference in aroma and taste between the super West Lake Longjing without old fire and green taste and the super Zhejiang Longjing produced in Zhejiang Province. West Lake Longjing is tender and fragrant, with a fresh and soft taste. Zhejiang Longjing has a tender chestnut fragrance and a mellow taste. If the West Lake Longjing and Zhejiang Longjing are fried by a multifunctional machine, there is no obvious difference in aroma between them due to the change of the traditional production technology of Longjing tea. Most other flat teas have the taste of sauteed green tea. However, even West Lake Longjing, once fried into old fire tea, is fried with soybean fragrance, which is not easy to distinguish its origin from aroma. Longjing tea stored at room temperature in Jiangnan tea area turns yellow and its aroma becomes weak after the rainy season.
4. Evaluation of leaf bottom
The evaluation of leaf bottom is mainly to evaluate color, tenderness and completeness. Sometimes the tea residue in the cup is poured into a rectangular enamel plate, and then cold water is added to see the tenderness of the bottom of the leaf, which can be used as a reference for grading.
5. Grade evaluation of Longjing tea
The grade of Longjing tea should be determined according to the standard tea sample. If the appearance is different from the standard tea sample (such as organic tea), it can only be judged according to the tenderness grade equivalent to the standard tea sample. At present, most of the bulk Longjing tea is listed after soaking, and some are not graded, only the price. If it is a small package of Longjing, the product name and grade must be marked, and these teas should be evaluated against standard samples.
There is a certain relationship between the grade and color of Longjing tea. High-grade spring tea is light green, medium yellow and dark brown in color. Longjing tea produced in summer and autumn is dark or grayish brown, which is one of the characteristics of low quality. The color of machine-made Longjing tea is dark green.
6. Evaluation of new tea and old tea
When the tea produced every year is called new tea, it has been called old tea since the second year. High-grade tea in new tea, dry tea is more shiny, old tea and wet tea are darker in color. If old tea is mixed with new tea, the overall color of dry tea will be more gorgeous; But when old tea is mixed with cold storage, the color is often green, and sometimes the two are confused. If you comment on the soup, it will help to distinguish it.
7. Evaluation of spring tea and summer and autumn tea
If both kinds of tea are new, they can be distinguished by the color of dry tea. If the colors of these two teas are "aging" and lose the characteristics of new tea, it is necessary to evaluate the leaves after boiling the soup, so as to evaluate the products in different tea seasons. The bottom of spring tea is soft, and the bottom of summer and autumn tea is hard, which is easy to distinguish.
8. Evaluation of Brown Rice Color of Longjing Tea
Only the "Qian Ming" part of Shifeng Super Longjing Tea has a natural brown rice color, that is, light yellow and light green. Because the tea gardens in Shifeng are mostly located in mountainous areas with large shade and low sunshine intensity, the temperature in early spring is low, the chlorophyll a content of young leaves harvested early is low, and the lutein content is high, which is tender yellow. The fried tea has natural brown rice color. This is a major feature of Shifeng Longjing and a sign of good quality. Its price is the highest among Longjing teas. So some tea farmers pursue this color unilaterally. No matter whether it is alpine tea or flat tea, they have no fresh leaves with natural brown rice color, but they should be hard-fried into brown rice color, that is, in the frying stage, the electric frying pan (tea frying pan) is finally turned on to high temperature for high-temperature frying, and the frying time is extended, so that the tea leaves are fried into "brown rice color" with high firepower, that is, the old fire tea that loses light yellow color. This self-defeating move is really undesirable. At present, there are a lot of "brown rice color" old fire Longjing tea fried in high-temperature wok. How to judge whether it is natural brown rice color or old brown rice color in evaluation can be distinguished according to the contents listed in Table 3.
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