On packs of black, green and other types of tea, you can often see the inscription "long-term". But not everyone knows the meaning and origin of this familiar word.
The origin of the word "baikhovy"
In China, since ancient times, there has been an expensive variety of white tea called "Bai Hao Yin Zhen", which means "white villi". This "Bai Hao Yin Zhen" is hand-picked in an ecologically clean area with a certain climate in the spring. In this case, only the buds of the leaves are collected, which did not have time to open and are covered with villi. Only people without bad habits and not using perfumes are allowed to collect. Tea is manually processed, after which its villi become silvery, hence its name.
In ancient times, Chinese traders used to call all sorts of teas "Bai Hao" in order to pass them off as high-quality and expensive ones and sell them to foreign merchants at an inflated price. Returning home, Russian merchants also tried to sell the tea they brought at a higher price and somewhat distorted the name. As a result, the word “baikhovy” stuck, which was supposed to emphasize the high cost and rarity of tea.
This expensive variety, however, has nothing to do with the usual long tea, which is drunk everywhere.
Baykhov tea today
Today, baikhovy is the trade name for most types of tea, presented in the form of individual tea leaves. It can be black, green, yellow, red (oolong), depending on the processing technology of the tea leaf.
Black teas, by the size of tea leaves, are divided into large-leaf, broken (medium), crumb / sowing (small), and green teas - into large-leaf and broken.
To obtain black long tea, it is wilted, twisted, fermented, and dried.
Green long tea (kok-tea) does not undergo withering and fermentation, unlike black tea. Leaves are fixed with hot steam, dried to 60% humidity, curled, sorted and dried. Green tea retains more chlorophyll, vitamins, tannins and other biologically active substances than black tea.
Long tea in China is called "imperial" and is made from high quality raw materials. The manufacturing process includes withering the leaves, steaming or light roasting, rolling and drying. The tea leaves are black with an olive tint. Yellow tea is weakly fermented, it has a strong tonic effect and a floral aroma.
In addition to loose loose tea, there are also pressed teas (brick, tablet and slab) and extracted (in dry crystalline form or in the form of a liquid extract).
Long tea is obtained by withering, rolling, short fermentation, light roasting, re-rolling and drying. During fermentation, the tips of the leaves take on a reddish brown tint. Red tea, like yellow tea, is weakly fermented and has the strongest aroma. Tea leaves are dark, have a bluish metallic sheen.
