Saturday 9 June 2012

Tea in China

Today I was drinking the fruit tea that I had brought from China so decided to write about my experiences of visiting a place that explains the art of drinking tea and the various kinds of teas that are drank in China and the particular benefits of each.

Tea Hostess

I went for tea tasting at Dr. Tea in Beijing. Dr Tea is located on the Min Zu Yuan Road in the Chao Yang district of Beijing. There are tea hostess to explain the whole process and for foreigners there are English speaking hostesses. The hostess started with explaining the different kinds of teas that is drank in China. They have a lot of varieties of teas compared to India. Also most Indians drink their tea with milk (and sugar) and comparatively speaking the Indian tea is much stronger (boiled longer) than the Chinese tea. Several cups of tea is made from the same tea leaves in China as they normally take mild tea.

Explaining the various kinds of tea 

Firstly the hostess explained the various kind of tea leaves along with preparing and giving us to taste the tea and also explaining the various health benefits of each. The types of teas that I tasted were the White Tea supposedly  good for cold, coughs and sore throat; Golden Green Tea also known as the slimming tea or the Wild puer tea supposedly good for regulating blood pressure, lowering of cholesterol and to lose weight.

Fruit Tea in the Jar

Then I was given to taste the Oriental Beauty or the King of Oolong Tea supposedly good for blood circulation and skin. The Jasmine tea was equally good in taste and supposedly good to fight the summer heat and to improve the eyesight. Litchi tea is good for digestion.The Ginseng as well as Tain Qi Flower tea are known to restore your energy and protect your liver and kidney..

There are different ways to hold a tea cup in China depending on the kind of tea you are drinking and also depending on whether you are a male or female!

Tea is considered as a Chinese national drink. The Chinese gulps down N number of tea cups in a day as their teas are very light, The reason for people drinking huge amounts of tea in China is, I think, mainly because China is a very cold and dry country and therefore one needs lots of intake of fluids.

The place has several varieties of teas as well as tea crockery for sale and the hostess at the end was able to sell some tea to me as well despite the fact that by Indian standards the tea was costly!

The best tea I liked was the fruit tea which has several kinds of dried fruits and flowers and after making 2-3 cups from the same lot one can actually eat the fruits and flowers giving the original flavor. It is a real mood relaxer!

2 comments:

chaichuntea said...

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chaichuntea said...

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