Fried tea leaves are very green. What is the reason why they turn yellow after drying?

This is because there are green leaves in fresh tea leaves, and the green leaves in freshly fried tea leaves have not been completely oxidized, but after being heated and slowly cooled, the volatilized tea leaves turn yellow.

Tea making process

1. Tea picking: Hold the middle part of the young stem with the index finger and thumb, and pick the tea with the force of two fingers. Different tea-picking parts are different. Some choose a terminal bud and the first leaf next to the bud, which is called one leaf with one heart, some choose one more leaf, which is called two leaves with one heart, and some have three leaves with one heart.

2. Sunlight withering: The picked tea leaves must be exposed to sunlight or evaporated with hot air to reduce the moisture content in the cells, because only when part of the moisture in the tea leaves disappears can the oxygen in the air chemically change with the components in the leaf cells, which is called "fermentation". If you want to make "non-fermented tea", you should directly "kill the green", and if you want to make "semi-fermented tea" or "fully fermented tea", you should "wither".

Third, indoor withering and stirring: after the tea leaves become soft, they are moved indoors, which is called indoor withering. The main purpose of the first stirring is to promote the release of water, and the second stirring is to make the leaves fully rub against each other to promote oxidation (that is, fermentation).

4. Stir-fried Anthocyanin: When Camellia withers to a proper degree, it is necessary to use high-temperature stir-fried Anthocyanin to destroy the enzyme activity in the leaves to stop fermentation and remove the peculiar smell in the fresh leaves. Traditionally, it is fried in a pot, but in modernization, it is fried with a drum-type water-killing machine. Most of the tea consumed in Taiwan Province Province is fried, and only a few green teas are steamed (such as Japanese Yulu, fried tea and matcha). Fried green tea is more fragrant and steamed green tea is greener.

5. Kneading (enzymatic oxidation): Put the fried tea into a kneading machine to make it roll to form a curly shape (just like kneading green tea like kneading noodles). Because tea leaves are crushed, some juice will be squeezed out and attached to the surface, so it is easy to dissolve in tea soup when brewing, and the degree of kneading of different tea leaves is different.

6. group rubbing: also known as "rubbing cloth". That is to say, the tea green that has been preliminarily kneaded into a ball is wrapped with a cloth, then the head of the cloth towel is held with one hand, and the cloth ball is kneaded in the same direction with the other hand to make it roll, so that the "cloth ball" will be kneaded more and more tightly, and it will be put aside for cooling and molding when it is tight to a certain extent. Then open it to make the tea green loose (called "deblocking"), heat it, wrap it up and knead it repeatedly until it is kneaded into the required shape and tea quality.

Seven, drying: drying is to evaporate the water of the finished tea green. The twisted tea leaves are dried with hot air by a dryer, so that the moisture content is lower than 4%, which is beneficial to storage and transportation. Usually, in order to make the internal and external drying consistent, the secondary drying method is often used. First, they are dried by 70% to 80%, then they are taken out for moisture regain, and then they are dried again.

Method for storing tea leaves

1, the simplest way to keep fresh in the refrigerator: put the tea in a dry, odorless and sealable container bottle and put it in the freezer of the refrigerator. If the amount of tea leaves is small and very dry, it can also be packaged and sealed in a double-layer film bag with good moisture-proof performance and put in the refrigerator.

2. The most common storage method of tin cans: put the tea leaves in the tin cans with double covers, and it is best to fill them without leaving any gaps, so that there is less air in the cans. The double-layer lid should be tightly covered, the gap of the lid should be glued with adhesive tape, the tea pot should be put into a double-layer nylon bag, and the mouth of the bag should be sealed to achieve the best storage effect.

3. The most convenient storage method of the composite bag: put the tea leaves in the composite bag, squeeze out the air in the bag, seal the bag mouth with a sealing machine, then put on a plastic bag, tie the bag mouth tightly, and put it in the refrigerator for cold storage.

4. The most practical thermos storage method: put the tea in a dry thermos, cover it with a cork, seal it with white wax, and then seal it with tape.