Vietnamese lotus tea

Where it grows

Inherited from its components — Vietnam is the level this record can honestly claim. The leaf and the lotus grow in different places. Sprint 42 set out to give this tea a growing district and found the premise wrong: Tây Hồ in Hanoi is where the hundred-petal lotus is grown and where the scenting is done, and the green tea underneath it comes from the northern tea provinces. A district link would have asserted that the tea is GROWN in Hanoi, which is false — so the cultivation belongs to the base tea, as it does for the other scentings.

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. Pan-firing (Chinese fixation) — Denatures oxidation enzymes through dry contact heat while simultaneously initiating surface browning reactions in the leaf.
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. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
5. 5. Scenting — Transfers floral volatiles into the leaf by repeated contact with fresh blossom, without leaving the blossom in the product.
6. 6. Re-firing — Removes reabsorbed moisture from finished tea at a temperature low enough not to add roast character.

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.

• Jasmine-scented green tea — A finished green tea re-enters the factory in the flowering season and goes round a loop — layer with fresh blossom, screen it out, re-dry — as many as nine times.

  Where it is practised: Fujian above all, with Guangxi and Sichuan also producing at scale. The base tea and the flowers frequently come from different provinces, which is why the trade is organised around moving finished tea to where the jasmine is.

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
• Pan-firing (Chinese fixation)
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • locks EGC (epigallocatechin)
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins
• Scenting
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Indole
  • raises Jasmine lactone
• Re-firing
  • raises Epimerised catechins
  • raises Melanoidins

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.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  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

Common mistakes

• Boiling water. It removes the aroma that is the entire cost of the tea.
• Judging it against jasmine. The scent is quieter by design and reads as weak only if jasmine is the reference.

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.

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