Few people know that the taste and aroma of good Chinese tea is associated not only with the specifics of the variety, but also with the time of year when the harvest was made.
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In the Chinese provinces, where tea cultures have been cultivated for centuries, everyone knows that not only the aroma of tea, but also its healing potential directly depends on the harvesting season.
- Spring harvesting always allows you to get very fragrant and “heavy” tea: in spring, tea trees are gaining strength, growth processes are starting to accelerate, fresh buds appear. The aroma of spring teas is considered the strongest and most saturated, and the taste is dominated by sweet notes. Young tea leaves, most recently emerged from the kidneys, allow you to get incomparable purity, tenderness and transparency of the drink.
- In the summer, tea is harvested in two periods: from May to June, and then from July to August. In summer, the air temperature is the highest, it affects the composition and growth of tea leaves, so summer teas are considered not as fragrant as spring ones. In addition, much less essential oils pass into the tea infusion from such leaves. Nevertheless, summer teas have their advantages: their aroma is not so saturated, but in their composition there are a lot of catechins, substances of youth and strength. Summer tea tastes much stronger than lightness and freshness. That is why in the summer they prefer to pick red teas, which are distinguished by the dark color of the infusion and astringent taste. Many summer teas may have a bitter taste.
- The fall season for picking tea begins in September and ends in mid-October. By autumn, tea leaves and buds are already losing some of their beneficial components, so it is significantly inferior to spring teas in terms of aroma saturation and inferior to summer crops in fortress. Autumn tea has almost no smell; it is very light and weak.
- Despite the fact that winter is a cold season, a winter season of tea exists. It ends in late November, and the varieties harvested in winter are of excellent quality and delicate aroma. There is no bitterness in the taste of winter teas, for which they are extremely appreciated by lovers of the soft and delicate taste of Chinese tea. Finding out when the tea you are about to buy was collected is easy. Any seller of good Chinese tea has all the necessary information about where and when the varieties for sale were collected.