Few people know that the taste and aroma of good Chinese tea is associated not only with the specificity of the variety, but also with the season when the harvest was made.
In the Chinese provinces, where tea crops have been cultivated from time immemorial, 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 a very aromatic and "heavy" tea: in spring tea trees gain strength, growth processes begin to accelerate, fresh buds appear. The aroma of spring teas is considered the strongest and most intense, and the taste is dominated by sweetish notes. Young tea leaves, which have recently emerged from the buds, allow you to get incomparable purity, tenderness and transparency of the drink.
- During the summer season, tea is harvested in two periods: from May to June, and then from July to August. In summer, the air temperature is the highest, this affects the composition and growth of tea leaves, so summer teas are not considered as aromatic as spring teas. In addition, significantly less essential oils pass into the tea infusion from such leaves. Nevertheless, summer teas have their advantages: their aroma is not so intense, but they contain a lot of catechins, substances of youth and strength. There is much more strength in the taste of summer tea than lightness and freshness. That is why in the summer they prefer to collect red teas, which are distinguished by the dark color of the infusion and the tart taste. Many summer teas can have a bitter taste.
- The autumn tea harvesting season starts in September and ends in mid-October. By autumn, tea leaves and buds have already lost some of their useful components, therefore, in terms of aroma saturation, it is significantly inferior to spring teas, and in strength it is inferior to the summer harvest. Autumn tea has practically no smell, it is very light and weak.
- Despite the fact that winter is the coldest time of the year, there is a winter tea season. It ends at the end of 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. It is not difficult to find out when the tea you are about to buy was harvested. Any seller of good Chinese tea has all the necessary information about where and when the varieties for sale were collected.
