Gunpowder green tea

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in China. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Pingshui — 50–700 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Kill-green (fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase and related enzymes, arresting enzymatic oxidation.
3. 3. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
4. 4. Pearl forming (chao gan cheng yuan) — Compresses each piece of leaf into a sphere by continuous agitation against a heated pan wall while driving off moisture, so that shaping and drying happen together and the finished pellet is hard rather than pliable.
5. 5. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Pearl-formed green tea (zhu cha) — A Chinese pan-fired green in which the shaping and the drying are one operation: the leaf is worked against a heated pan until each piece closes into a hard pellet.

  Where it is practised: Zhejiang above all, with Pingshui near Shaoxing as the historic centre — the trade name 平水珠茶 comes from it. Produced elsewhere in China for the same export markets, and consumed overwhelmingly in North Africa rather than in China.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Kill-green (fixation)
  • locks 2-Phenylethanol
  • locks Anthocyanins
  • locks Catechins
  • locks cis-3-Hexenol
  • locks Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks L-theanine
  • locks Leaf lipids
  • locks Methylated catechins
  • locks Theogallin
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Pearl forming (chao gan cheng yuan)
  • converts Chlorophyll
  • creates Pyrazines
  • lowers Soluble sugars
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Rolled into tight pellets that resist air and survive handling, which made it the standard Chinese export tea for long sea voyages from the eighteenth century. Its role as the base of Moroccan mint tea comes directly from that export trade rather than from any Moroccan production.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1–2 g/100 ml · 80–90 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Moroccan mint tea preparation

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Sun tea

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 20–40 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  3–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 4 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Noon chai (Kashmiri pink tea)

  1.5–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Brewing saucepan, Tea strainer

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Berrad (Maghrebi teapot) — Maghrebi service brings the pot back to the boil with the sugar and mint in it, and the berrad is built to go onto the flame.

Common mistakes

• Steeping it briefly as though the pellets were open leaf

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Green tea styles compared — Five green teas spanning steamed and pan-fired, shaded and unshaded, roasted and fresh. The fixation method splits this category more than any origin does. Put the two side by side
• Gunpowder vs sencha — Two rolled green teas that look superficially similar and are made for opposite purposes — one to survive a sea voyage, one to be drunk within months of picking. Put the two side by side
• Longjing vs gunpowder — Two pan-fired Chinese green teas at opposite ends of the market, and a useful demonstration that shaping is a decision about purpose rather than quality. Put the two side by side

Botanicals this connects to

• Spearmint — Moroccan mint tea is gunpowder green tea brewed hard with a large quantity of fresh spearmint and sugar. Neither component alone is the drink.
• Saffron — Kashmiri kahwa is a green tea with saffron, almond and cardamom, and it is the region’s signature drink.

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Afghan tea customs — Green tea with cardamom as the everyday default, black tea in the north and east, a pink cream tea for celebrations, and a hospitality convention in which the pot arrives before anything is discussed.
• Attaya in Senegal and the Gambia — The Saharan three-glass service adapted into a West African street institution: young men making tea for hours at a bench outside, with named rounds, a competitive standard of foam, and a whole vocabulary of waiting around.
• Kashmiri noon chai and kahwah — Two Kashmiri preparations that have almost nothing in common: a salted pink tea made by boiling green leaf with bicarbonate of soda, drunk at breakfast with bread, and a sweet saffron-and-almond infusion served to guests.
• Maghrebi mint tea — Sweet green tea with fresh mint, poured from height into small glasses and served in successive rounds — both a daily drink and a formal act of hospitality across North Africa and the Sahel.
• Pakistani tea customs — Tea boiled entirely in milk with no water at all, green cardamom qahwa in the north-west, and a country that drinks tea in enormous quantity while growing almost none of it.
• Saharan three-glass tea — Two small pots, a charcoal brazier, a great deal of sugar and two hours: the Mauritanian and Touareg service in which three glasses are made in sequence, each one different, with the foam built by pouring the tea back and forth between glasses.
• Sanpaotai and eight-treasure tea — The north-western Chinese covered bowl served with rock sugar, dried fruit and flowers alongside the leaf — a Hui Muslim hospitality form from Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai that has almost nothing in common with tea drinking further east.
• The Canton System — The arrangement under which all European maritime trade with China was funnelled through one port and one licensed merchant guild for roughly eighty-five years — the bottleneck through which effectively every pound of tea Europe drank had to pass.
• The Central Asian chaikhana — The Uzbek and Tajik tea house — raised platform beds, green tea in handleless bowls, and a pouring convention in which the host deliberately returns the first pours to the pot before serving anyone.

Prepared drinks built on this tea

A drink is a recipe rather than a leaf: the tea above is one ingredient in it, and the method, the additions and the ratios belong to the drink rather than to this page.

• Maghrebi mint tea (atay) — Chinese gunpowder green tea brewed strong with a large bundle of fresh spearmint and a great deal of sugar, poured from height into small glasses. It is both a daily drink and a formal act of hospitality across North Africa, and the pour is functional as well as expressive.
• Noon chai — Kashmiri salted milk tea with a distinctive pink colour, produced by boiling green tea with bicarbonate of soda and then shocking it with cold water before the milk goes in. The colour is a genuine chemical effect rather than an added dye.