The feeling of soup belongs to the performance of touch, that is, the tea soup after the precipitation of tea leaves and water fusion. Give tea drinkers the feeling of mouth formation, just like the feeling of rice soup and chicken soup. Rice soup has a “thick” feel, chicken soup has a “thick and smooth” feel, high-quality cooked tea is more like rice soup, and high-quality raw tea is more like chicken soup. Soup feeling is an important sensory indicator for high-level tea enthusiasts to appreciate tea. The soup taste of a tea product is an internal and important manifestation of the quality of a tea product, and determines the performance and direction of the later aging of the tea product.
In general, the sensory indicators of tea soup. Mainly use thick and thin to express. The performance of “thickness and thinness” of tea soup is determined by whether the tea contains rich substances or not. Thickness is mainly manifested in the richness of the tea product. On the contrary, thinness is mainly manifested in the lack of internal quality of the tea. For example: the taste of ancient tree tea soup will be thicker (thick and solid) than that of platform tea. Xishuangbanna teas have a thicker soup than teas from other regions. Brown-type teas such as Laoman’e and Laobanzhang have a relatively thick soup taste. However, teas such as Xigui, Mansong, Iceland, and Yibang do not have a rich sense of soup.
The soup of cooked tea is mostly thick but not thick. In recent years, Longtea has selected the cooked tea made from high-quality ancient tree tea materials from Laobanzhang. It is a high-quality mature tea made from ancient trees that is hard to find in the market. The soup feels dense and thick, which is really a rare high-end fever and best cooked tea.
The 10 subdivided sensory indicators of soup sense:
- Solidity: It is thick and solid, which is the embodiment of the rich accumulation of high-quality tea.
- Consistency: The thickness of raw tea mainly comes from the late aging, and the thickness of cooked tea becomes better and better with time.
- Softness: the soft feeling of high-quality tea in Yiwu and other regions.
- Compliance: Similar to Jingmai and other regional teas, it is easy to confuse with softness.
- Fineness: similar to the denseness of regional tea products such as Yibang.
- Waxy degree: similar to the thick feeling, but different.
- Alcohol: the mellow feeling of a well-balanced tea.
- Moistness: the mellow feeling of high-quality regional tea products, and the degree of moistness will become better with the aging of tea products.
- Smoothness: High-quality tea becomes smoother with time.
- Fullness: the high-quality performance of tea products with rich and balanced inner quality.
The sensory indicators subdivided above have different performances depending on the degree of alcoholization and different regions. Some indicators are overlapped and mixed to form a comprehensive sensory performance. Such as mellow feeling, waxy feeling, thick slippery feeling and so on. Yunnan Pu-erh tea has the same flavor, rich and colorful, and endlessly interesting. Some soups are as heavy as old Man’e, some are as soft as Yiwu, some are as soft as Jingmai, some are as mellow as Iceland, some are as clear as old times, and some are as thick as manwa. , Some are as full as a mint pond.
Based on my nearly 20 years of experience, it is an ancient tree tea that is relatively old enough, tall enough, lush, with a good ecological environment and excellent quality. Its soup will be more mellow, smooth, smooth and full, similar to the feeling of drinking chicken soup. In particular, the mellowness and fullness will be excellent.
The most important thing to emphasize here is that tea lovers tend to confuse the thick and sticky feeling of newly made tea. Thickness and stickiness are two different oral sensory tactile manifestations, similar to strong muscles and puffy fat. The former, thickness is an excellent performance of rich endoplasmic accumulation of tea growth. For the latter, the stickiness is due to the intervention of the process, which makes the soup feel sticky and the water path is not clear. The tea with a thick soup taste becomes thicker, smoother and denser in the later stage of aging. However, the newly made tea soup feels sticky, and the later aging will become weaker and weaker, and the taste will be lost.
The influencing factors of tea soup taste are summarized into 5 aspects:
1. Raw materials
The quality of raw materials is the basic condition for soup taste. Relatively speaking, spring tea is better than autumn tea and summer tea. Spring tea is full-bodied, autumn tea is mellow, and summer tea is relatively light and empty.
2. Process
The quality of the process directly determines the performance of tea soup and the trend of later aging.
3. Storage aging
Excellent storage aging, which can promote the decomposition, transformation and aggregation of substances contained in tea products. It can greatly determine and improve the body, smoothness and consistency of tea soup.
4. Brewing method
Including water quality, water injection method, soaking time, water temperature, amount of tea, etc. Excellent brewing method can greatly highlight the soup taste of tea.
5. Utensils for brewing
There are many utensils for brewing tea. According to different textures, the commonly used ones are mainly divided into three categories: pottery, glass and porcelain. The main reason for affecting the soup feeling is that its density structure is different. The density of pottery is lower than that of porcelain and lower than that of glass, resulting in a different soup expression.
Tasting of tea soup taste: the entrance tea soup is moderate and warm, neither too much nor too little. The entrance temperature should be lukewarm and not too hot, neither too cold nor too hot. After the tea soup is in your mouth, don’t rush to swallow it quickly. Slide it on the surface of the tongue, and turn it lightly in the mouth, so that the tea soup can moisturize the entire mouth. Focus on the feeling of chewing carefully, similar to chewing tea soup with teeth. You can feel the different expressions of tea soup very well.
