丨This article was originally written by Xiao Chen Chashi
丨First published in Baijiahao: Xiao Chen Tea Affair
丨Author: Village Gu Chen
Zhang Dai of the Ming Dynasty once said, "People have no habits, and they can't make friends." ”
Habits are the true expression of people.
Many people who love tea have long been accustomed to being accompanied by tea in their daily lives.
It can be said that you can't live without tea for a day.
Tea drinkers who have a hobby of tea will have a common interest - Tibetan tea.
When you come across a tea you like, you will add a few more servings and stay to drink it slowly.
When you come across tea that is suitable for long-term storage, simply buy it by the box and put it into catties.
Even if you can't drink it for a year and a half, you can wait patiently.
The process of drinking the old and saving the new is infinitely fun.
Tibetan tea fetish is a dialogue between people and things, and it is also a reconciliation between people and their own lives.
It allows us to focus on the small world of our own interests and resist the distractions of the outside world.
In the years when the culture of abandonment has prevailed, it seems that "complexity" has become a burden to life.
Although, "she" can make life more quiet and simple.
However, proper "hiding" and "keeping" can make the spiritual life richer.
March is approaching, and the spring tea season is about to start one after another.
Spring tea picking and new products are imminent, and there must be many tea lovers who care about such topics.
Is the spring tea on the market that year have any collection value?
There can be no one-size-fits-all approach to this issue.
After reading the following 3 stories from different angles, it can help you solve your doubts.
1. "Centennial green tea is a joke. ”
When it comes to tea collection, most people think of Tibetan white tea, Tibetan Pu'er, and Tibetan black tea.
However, there are exceptions.
I have seen such an unusual way of Tibetan tea on the Internet - Tibetan green tea.
That's a piece of tea**, and the synopsis of the story is that a "teacher" who claims to understand tea suddenly has a craving for tea.
So he used the camera to show off his inventory, all kinds of old tea, full of inventory.
It can be called colorful and dazzling.
In a pile of old tea, rummaging through it.
As a result, I found an antique-grade old tea that blinded everyone, which is said to be a longjing that has been stored for a hundred years.
As soon as these words came out, the barrage exploded.
What?100 years of Longjing?!
If I remember correctly, Longjing is green tea, and ordinary people drink green tea, at most within a year and a half.
This is good, but the practice of drinking tea is the opposite.
Drink green tea, drink old and not new, and drink expired tea specifically.
Moreover, it is a century-old Longjing that has been stored for more than 100 years, dry tea has turned from green to black, and tea soup has turned from green to red.
It doesn't sound too bizarre.
A hundred years means that this tea will have to go through at least two or three generations of collection before it can be properly preserved.
A hundred years ago, it was a turbulent and stormy old China.
How to talk about a stable environment to provide a suitable storage space for this small box of tea, such as dry, cool, protected from light, clean and odorless?
Therefore, when you hear the name of century-old green tea, you can know that you can't be gullible behind it with intuitive experience.
But the "teacher" in **, after brewing the tea soup, did not wash the tea, and drank a big sip without changing his face.
The mouth muttered, the breath was strong, and there was a "tasteless taste" from the throat to the bottom of the tongue.
In other words, what is this tasteless taste?
Come to think of it, it's hard to talk to outsiders.
That's why I used this mysterious adjective.
From an objective standpoint, this "Centennial Longjing" drinking method ridiculed by the whole network, don't follow the trend and imitate it.
Don't try the old green tea that should be drunk fresh as soon as possible.
After many years, the tea fragrance disappears, the dry tea turns dark, and the green tea that is no longer fresh has zero tasting value.
The so-called tasteless taste is obviously just a beautifying term for "dull and boring".
If you take it seriously, imitate the green tea in your hand, save it for 10 or 20 years and then drink it, this joke will be a big joke.
Not only did he ruin the tea in vain, but he also wasted years of saving tea for many years and found nothing.
Second, "how can low-end Pu'er talk about collection appreciation." ”
After the rise of live streaming, you can often see all kinds of Pu'er tea on the Internet.
Among them, there are many teas in the eyes of insiders, which can be called fake.
For example, some bold merchants will find a few tea cakes and buy some old white paper.
Holding a bald brush, write the words that are crooked - thousand-year-old tree tea.
Then hang up the link in a grand manner.
The sales model is as follows, first tell a circle of stories, and then start the self-directed and self-acting price reduction routine.
Don't want 80,000, don't want 8,000, the live broadcast room has a limited time to buy the price, and you can take it away directly for 800.
Buy 2 get 1 free, everyone makes friends ......
All kinds of god blowing skills boast about this cake and tea.
But to tell the truth, how can we talk about mass production of Pu'er, an ancient tree that has become refined for thousands of years?
Even if there is, it will be listed at auction, and the tea mining rights alone can be auctioned at a sky-high price.
How can there be finished tea flowing into these live broadcast rooms that specialize in selling low-end and inferior tea?
The above story, just listen to it, don't take it seriously.
When you get the real thing of dry tea, you will see that the dry tea is poor, the aroma is light, the soup is muddy, and the tea taste is not resistant to brewing.
I advise you not to continue collecting.
The ugly duckling can become a swan because it is.
The same is true for storing tea, the premise of Tibetan tea appreciation is to select good seedlings and good quality.
As for the so-called low-end tea, inferior tea, and counterfeit tea, even if it is stored for another 100 years, it will still not be on the table.
3. "White tea with substandard water content will not be stored for the second year." ”
A tea friend from other provinces reported that he bought a pack of Sichuan silver needles last year.
When I first started, I took it apart and drank it a few times.
The floral fragrance is quite distinct, the aroma is good, and the tea soup is also fresh.
The key is that it is much cheaper than Fuding silver needle, and the cost performance is particularly high.
But when I drank it again after the beginning of spring this year, I found that the silver needle had changed.
The aroma of tea is very light, and there is no smell of fragrance after boiling water.
The point is, there is also an indescribable strange smell.
The entrance of tea soup is light, thin and astringent.
There is also a faint smell of stinky ditches, can you help sort it out, what happened to this silver needle.
Does it mean that the white silver needles produced in Sichuan have no collection value?
This is not the case, the key problem of that silver needle is not the origin, but the process.
If you guessed correctly, the tea maker who made the Baihao silver needle had never been exposed to white tea processing before.
I don't know that the thick white silver needles on the bud head are the drying tricks hidden behind them.
I just collected a batch of tea buds casually, and I started to grope for tea.
As a result, the moisture on the surface of the bud head was shallow dried under the random production, and the water vapor in the innermost layer of the bud head was not dried through.
Similar to boiling steamed rice, a pot of raw rice is boiled.
This kind of white silver needle that is not baked through, but when the new tea is first launched, it is very confusing.
Because it also has a floral fragrance and also has a sense of freshness.
But the good times don't last long, and after half a year or a year, it will go downhill.
No matter what method is used, the more you save, the worse it gets.
The tea taste is light, with a watery and stuffy taste, and the foaming resistance is reduced.
There is no wonderful performance of high-quality white tea that is more and more sweet and mellow!
When encountering this kind of white tea that is marketed early and the water content is not thoroughly roasted, it is better to stay away.
Spring tea collection, not blind.
There is a choice, and there is no choice.
First of all, it is necessary to choose the right category suitable for Tibetan tea.
Green tea, flower tea, yellow tea and other teas that should be drunk as soon as possible, don't blindly store them for a long time.
Drink it early during the peak period of flavor, it is the best choice.
Secondly, it is necessary to choose the right production area.
Produced in the core production area, the inner tea flavor is rich in accumulation, and it can be aged with good quality.
Again, it is necessary to choose spring tea with reliable technology.
At the very least, make sure that the inside and outside are dry and the moisture content is up to standard.
When reaching out and pinching the tea buds, the tea on the surface of the bud head is fluffy, and the tip of the bud has a sharp feeling, which is dry and refreshing.
Finally, there is the old issue of quality.
Even Pu'er and white tea are not blindly getting older, the better.
From the new tea, the color and fragrance are outstanding, and it is a good seedling worth collecting.
Instead of blindly listening to gimmicks, it is better to distinguish the quality from the basic tea flavor and tea taste!
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Xiao Chen Tea Village Gu Chen, column writer, the original innovation of the tea industry ** "Xiao Chen Tea Affairs" chief writer, has published a white tea monograph "White Tea Tasting Notes", and has written more than 4,000 original articles from 2016 to 2020.