/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19718368
>Currently eating the brewed genmaicha leaves as a snack.
Nice

>>18411817
Wow, I'm shocked people still start on /b/. Enjoy your stay I guess, remember, you're here forever.

>>17472843
All tea comes from one plant (camellia sinensis) but there are a bajillion different varietals, of varying importance.

Puer tea is camellia sinensis var. assamica, and is grown and processed in a specific region of China. Puer tea is split into two varieties, sheng (raw) puer, and shou (ripe) puer. Both undergo a process called sha qing, a type of searing, heating, and steaming that deactivates some enzymes and controls how the tea will age. At this point, sheng puer is finished. However, the idea of drinking "young" sheng (anything under five years, imo) is pretty recent. 10-20 years is around where most (Chinese) people would consider sheng puer ready to drink. It can be storied in various ways and places, and this is important, but you don't really need to worry about it. After sha qing, shou puer is piled in a warehouse, and sprayed with water. This promotes enzymatic activity, the intent was to create a tea that was ready to drink without needing to wait ten years. Really, shou puer tastes absolutely nothing like aged sheng, and is simply it's own variety of tea.

White tea is picked, and simply dried in the sun. There are a few important varieties of white, mostly based on what part of the "flush" is in the tea. There is bud only, bud and leaves, leaves without the bud, and a bunch of stuff in the middle. White tea is very floral and very sweet compared to other kinds of tea.