The fragrance is graceful, ethereal and impermanent, and it is hard to capture, but it makes people dream about it.
The fragrance of tea is not simple. For beginners, they know that tea is fragrant, but they don’t know how to express this fragrance.
Different teas have different fragrances. As long as you understand some basic fragrances of the six major types of tea, you can easily learn the fragrance of tea.
Green tea: fresh and refreshing like a spring breeze
Green tea is unfermented tea, and the raw materials are generally tender, so the fragrance is fresh and elegant, and we need to calm down and taste it carefully.
Fresh fragrance: fresh and elegant fragrance, smells refreshing and pure, most green teas can be described as fresh fragrance.
Hair fragrance: unique fragrance produced by the large number of tea hairs, especially in green tea with many hairs, such as Biluochun
Tender fragrance: tea made from young and tender raw materials and tea made from older raw materials have obvious differences in fragrance. The tenderer the tea, the more obvious the tender fragrance.
Chestnut aroma: The aroma similar to roasted chestnuts produced during the roasting process of roasted green tea is also described as roasted bean aroma, such as Longjing tea.
Baking aroma: The aroma of fire similar to roasted food produced during the roasting process of roasted green tea, such as Lu'an Guapian.
Orchid aroma: The fragrance of orchids that high-grade green tea brings is very elegant, such as the top-grade West Lake Longjing
Black tea: Like flowers, fruits and honey
Black tea is a fully fermented tea, with honey aroma as the main flavor. Before drinking it, you can smell the sweetness of honey, accompanied by some floral and fruity aromas.
Floral aroma: Black tea with a lower degree of fermentation has a fresh floral aroma, which is clear and elegant, such as Yinghong No. 9, which has a distinct floral aroma.
Fruity aroma: A sweet aroma similar to fruit that is a little stronger than floral aroma, such as Qihong.
Honey aroma: A sweet aroma similar to honey, which is common in black tea and particularly obvious in Dianhong.
Pine smoke aroma: The pine aroma produced by smoking with pine wood, such as Zhengshan Xiaozhong.
Oolong tea: flower and fruit aroma dances with fire aroma
Oolong tea is a semi-fermented tea, so its aroma is richer and more varied.
Although both oolong tea and black tea have flower and fruit aromas, they smell completely different, and ordinary people can easily distinguish them.
Flower aroma: exists in oolong tea with a lower degree of fermentation, such as the light-fragrant Tieguanyin with orchid aroma, and the single-bush tea with osmanthus aroma and ginger flower aroma.
Fruit aroma: ripe fruit aroma, which is common in moderately fermented Tieguanyin, high mountain oolong, single-bush, and rock tea.
Honey aroma: Oolong tea with a high degree of fermentation will have a honey aroma similar to black tea, such as Oriental Beauty.
Fire aroma: baking aroma and charcoal fire flavor formed by moderate roasting, such as Dahongpao with full fire. If it is over-roasted, it will have a burnt bitter taste.
Caramel aroma: tea that has been moderately roasted will have a distinct caramel aroma, which usually appears at the bottom of the cup and the lid of the pot.
Milk aroma: Tea made from some varieties of tea trees will have a milky aroma, such as Jinxuan and some Dancong.
White tea: fresh aroma, hair aroma and aged aroma
There are not many types of white tea. According to the age of the raw materials, it can be divided into Baihao Yinzhen with single buds and many hairs, and Bai Mudan with buds and leaves.
Shoumei (also known as Gongmei, the two words are almost the same now) with older leaves, fresh and old, with very different styles.
Tender aroma: The raw materials are fresh and have a fresh aroma, which is a bit similar to the taste of green tea, such as Baihao Yinzhen.
Hair aroma: Tea with many hairs has a special hair aroma. Generally speaking, the tenderer the raw materials, the more hairs the tea has. The hair aroma of Baihao Yinzhen is more obvious than that of Bai Mudan, and Shoumei has almost no hair aroma.
Date aroma, medicinal aroma: The strong aroma formed after white tea is aged into old white tea, similar to the aged aroma of red dates, Chinese medicine, and old wood.
Sun-dried aroma: White tea absorbs sunlight after being sun-dried to form an aroma. This indescribable aroma can be smelled in sun-dried white tea.
Floral and fruity aroma: White tea is slightly fermented tea. No matter how old or young it is, it will have a slight floral and fruity aroma. However, floral and fruity aroma is just a general term and is not quite the same as the floral and fruity aroma of black tea and oolong tea.
Black tea: Rich and mellow aroma
Black tea is also very easy to identify because the aroma produced by the post-fermentation process is completely different from other teas. It is generally described as aged and mellow.
Aged and mellow aroma: The rich aroma formed by the post-fermentation process unique to black tea is common in all kinds of black tea. The aged aroma of black tea will become more and more obvious after long-term storage.
Woody aroma: The raw materials of black tea are slightly old and have a high degree of lignification, so it will have a woody smell.
Fungus flower aroma: The unique aroma of black tea with "golden flowers", such as Liubao tea.
In addition to the 5 types of tea introduced above, there is also a relatively niche yellow tea.
The aroma of yellow tea is as fresh as green tea, but it is sweeter, with the aroma of rice crust and tender corn. Representative teas include Junshan Yinzhen and Huoshan Huangya.
The various aromas introduced above are all the aroma characteristics of good tea. If you encounter it and the taste is very palatable, you must seize the opportunity, drink more and taste more, and your tea tasting ability will definitely improve faster.
