I found this book while looking for books about tea at the library. Since I don’t know much about Chinese tea, I thought that this would be a pretty interesting book to read. This dual-language (Chinese and English) book talks about:

– Longjing (Dragon well) tea
– Bi Luo Chun
– Mao Feng, and
– Ping Shui Ri Zhu

It’s really more of a coffee table book as each chapter is full of pictures – of the tea farms, the surrounding areas, how the tea is made, and of course, how the tea is brewed. Most of the pictures come with a caption explaining what’s going on, which is very helpful. And at the end of each chapter, there is a “diary entry” about the tea, where the author talks about his experience with that particular tea and about its history. I generally enjoyed the diary entries the most because that’s where most of the information is.

From reading about these four teas, I understood that Chinese green tea is made in this fashion (I am, of course, generalising): pick the tea very carefully to avoid bruising, wither it, stop the fermentation (generally by applying heat – pan frying is more common in Chinese teas), and then roll it.

Out of the four teas, the one that I would like to try the most is the Ping Shui Ri Zhu, the precursor to gunpowder tea, because if the information in the book is accurate, this is a tea that ‘disappeared’ for a time before being brought back.

However, this book isn’t perfect. The translation isn’t the best, but more importantly, the language used to describe the tea was rather vague. For example, the flavour of Ping Shui Ri Zhu is described as “heavy and rich. The lingering was so sweet and beautiful.” I understand that it’s partly a translation issue and partly a preference issue, but I really prefer more concrete terms.

Come to think of it, this might be a cultural issue as well because from what I hear, Chinese teas tend to be described in rather flowery terms. It’s not my favourite way to do things because I feel that taste is a subjective thing (e.g. what is sweet to you may not be sweet to me), which is why care should be taken when describing flavours. Obviously, I’m not an expert at doing so, but I was hoping that the author of the book would be (which might not be a suitable expectation to have).

Overall, this is a pretty interesting book if you’re the visual type of person and want to learn more about four types of Chinese green tea. Since I’ve only tried Longjing before, I’d really like to try the other teas now, especially the Ping Shui Ri Zhu.