When we buy tea, we often feel troubled by not knowing how to choose among the variety of tea types with different prices. So how should we select tea? Today, let's learn together how to distinguish different teas.

Real tea? Fake tea?

Observe the appearance and smell the scent

Real tea has tightly rolled strips and feels relatively heavy, while fake tea is lighter; real tea contains theine and aromatic oils, emitting a tea fragrance when smelled, whereas fake tea has no tea aroma and may have a grassy smell, odd odor, or mixed smells. If there are such suspicious signs, further identification can be conducted.

Leaf observation

Steep the suspicious tea in boiling water twice, each time for 10 minutes, until the leaves fully unfold. Then take them out and place them in a leaf observation tray with clean water for detailed examination.

Real tea leaves have obvious serrated edges with glandular hairs on the锯齿. The serrations become sparse near the leaf base, which is generally triangular. The entire leaf has a clear网状 vein pattern, with the main vein visible and straight to the tip. The lateral veins do not go directly to the leaf edge but curve upward at about two-thirds of the way, connecting to the next vein to form a wavy pattern. Gently pulling the leaf stalk reveals fine filaments. If these morphological features are absent, it is fake tea.

New tea? Old tea?

It is customary to call the spring tea produced in the current year new tea; tea starts to be available in the market from Qingming to Guyu every year, and by the time new tea arrives the next year, the tea from the previous year becomes old tea. Generally, new tea is better than old tea, but there are cases where old tea is not inferior to new tea, or even better.

Observe the appearance

New tea appears dry, loose, and fresh in color, with a glossy and oily appearance, and breaks easily; old tea from the previous year is紧缩, dark and dull in color, not easy to break, and the brewed liquor appears dark.

Brewing

New tea has a refreshing aroma, with leaves unfolding, clear tea liquor, and a mellow (rich) and fresh taste, with a high fragrance; old tea has a low and dull aroma, shriveled leaves, murky tea color, and when brewed, the liquor appears dull yellow. After drinking, there is no refreshing mellow feeling, and some may have a slight stale odor.