Page 103 - #57 English

The post-winter tea that we are brewing today is
originally from Ding Tea area in Ali Mountain. The pro-
cessed tea leaves are blue and green, they take a shape of
a ball and relatively bigger size. Normally we need to pay
a lot of attention to not only tea’s variety, water’s quality,
but also to the brewing temperature. As mentioned in the
Classic of Tea book: on the first-round, water start boiling,
forming the bubbles at a size as fish eyes; on the second-
round, boiling bubbles at the edge of container rise up like
a string of pearls; on the third and last round, bubbles stir
and waves roll. After three brewing stages, water is not
suitable for making tea; thus we can see how to master
the water’s temperature and the right brewing temperature
to make tea. Water becomes hard caused by the deposit
of calcium after boiling again and again, this has bad impact
on the tea taste. Professional tea brewers with high self-
requirements will train themselves to observe the fine
brewed tea. This capability will help to reduce the chance
to make under-extracted tea due to unbrewed water, which
leads to lack of taste in tea, or over extracted tea due to
over brewing water, which tastes bitter and plain.
Today, we will make a
post-winter tea in a pot with WHAT MAKES FINE
water at a temperature of 95 POST-WINTER TEAS
degrees Celsius. You can see
that water mist is dense, with
many small bubbles on the bot-
tom starting rising up as a string
of pearls. Sometimes fish-eye
sized bubbles appear while
brewing and their sound is so
fast, like the wind blows through
short and post-winter tea appears mostly on naturally pine trees.
high quality tea trees, the yield is very low. Just because It is the right way to brew
of this, post-winter tea has other names like Liu Shui Zai tea, because in ancient times, 1 / water degrees
or Qi Shui Tea. The taste of post-winter tea is very rich our ancestors did not have
due to its special growing procedure - the low tempera- thermograph or automatic
ture make the leaves grow slowly so that leaves fiber temperature-controlling
structure is very strong. Besides the outstanding tea equipment. The only way to
fragrance and no bitterness, Post-winter tea tastes soft control the water’s brewing
and has a sweet aftertaste. All these make post-winter temperature was to observe
tea one of the seasonal specialty teas. bubbles’ size – when the size
The soft and smooth mouthfeel of post-winter tea is like a crab’s eye and brewing
comes only after careful tasting. Many tasters, when they sound is like a sound of wind
brew Post-winter tea for the first time, make mistake by blowing through pine trees, it 2 / altitude
prolonging brewing duration or increasing water tem- is also known as crab’s foam,
perature. In fact, it is not necessary, there is an old which rises up during the
Chinese saying “Tea’s temper is simple and not wide”, first-round brewing.
which means the taste of brewed tea is restrain, simple Since the introduction of
and self-consistent. Only by being calm, concentrated electrical brewing pot by Lu
and simple while drinking tea you can feel its beauty, Yu Tea Center in the 80s, it
brought to you by its bitterness and sorrow. Indeed, el- become very popular and as a
egant taste comes from few tastes. The flavor of post- result now it is easy to make
winter tea can be descripted as a waiting for spring young tea at home. For example, if
girl, all what you can feel after filling your mouth with the brewing temperature
it is youthful vital energy. reaches to 95 degrees, heavy 3 / management

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