Brick tea, also known as steam-pressed tea, is a kind of tea that looks like a brick and is also a representative type of pressed tea. It is a lump of tea made from pressed tea leaves, tea stems, and sometimes tea powder. Brick tea can be divided into green brick tea, rice brick tea, black brick tea, flower brick tea, Fu brick tea, Kang brick tea and other categories according to different raw materials and production techniques. All brick teas are steam-pressed, but the molding methods are different. For example, green brick tea, rice brick tea, black brick tea, flower brick tea, and Fuzhuan tea are formed by mechanical pressing, while Kangzhuan tea is formed by hammering.
Brick tea originated during the Taihe period of the Tang Dynasty and has a history of hundreds of years. It is a tea processing product invented by Chinese tea merchants in Hubei. There is a saying in northwest China that "it is better to live without food for three days than to live without tea for one day". Along with milk and meat, it has become a daily necessity for people of all ethnic groups in the northwest. At the same time, brick tea is also deeply loved by Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and other countries and regions.
Brick tea is a type of pressed tea that looks like a brick. Brick tea can be divided into many types based on different raw materials and production techniques.
Green brick tea: Green brick tea is mainly produced in Puqi, Xianning, Tongshan, Chongyang, Tongcheng and other counties in the Xianning region of Hubei Province. It has a production history of more than 100 years. Qingzhuan tea is made from old green tea as raw material and is pressed. It has a green-brown color, pure aroma, strong taste, no green gas, bright red and yellow soup color, and dark and thick old leaves at the bottom. Green brick tea has the effects of refreshing, producing body fluids and quenching thirst, sterilizing, and stopping diarrhea.
Rice brick tea: Rice brick tea is produced in Zhaoliqiao Tea Factory in Chibi City, Hubei Province, with a production history of more than a hundred years. The appearance of the finished rice brick tea is very beautiful, with sharp edges and corners, clear texture, bright black color on the brick surface, thick red soup color after brewing, pure aroma, mellow taste, and even leaf base. Rice brick tea is not only suitable for clear drinking, but also suitable for brewing into various milk teas, butter teas, etc.
Black brick tea: Black brick tea is produced in Anhua County, Hunan Province. It belongs to the dark tea category. It uses dark tea as raw material, has a dark and moist color, and the finished product is shaped like bricks, hence the name. Black brick tea is known as the "treasure of dark tea" due to its unique fermentation process and quality flavor. Black brick tea has many functions such as supplementing dietary nutrition, aiding digestion and removing fat, lowering fat and losing weight, antioxidant, sterilizing and anti-inflammatory.
Flower brick tea: Flower brick tea evolved from the historical "Qianliang tea" and "Hundred liang tea". Its predecessor was "Huajuan" tea. Because the net weight of a roll of tea coincides with the old scale's thousand liang, it is also called "Huajuan" tea. Thousand taels of tea." Later, Hanajuan tea was transformed into a brick shape. Because the net weight of a piece of tea was 2 kilograms, it was also called "huabrick". Huazhuan tea has a pure aroma, a rich and slightly astringent taste, a red-yellow soup color, and the bottom of the leaves are tender and even.
Fu brick tea: Fu brick tea is one of the teas sold on the border. It was originally a special commodity in nomadic areas such as the northwest, Kazakhs, and Mongolia. Fuzhuan tea is famous for its unique flowering technology and golden flowers (Corontocystis coronalis). It has many health functions such as digestion and stomach strengthening, killing fishy smell and relieving greasiness, lowering fat and weight loss, lowering blood pressure and lowering blood sugar.
Kang brick tea: Kang brick tea is mainly produced in Ya'an, Yibin, Jiangjin, Wanxian and other places in Sichuan Province. It is a post-fermented tea and belongs to the dark tea category. The shape of Kangzhuan tea is rectangular with rounded corners, the surface is flat and firm, the sprinkled surface is obvious, the color is brown, the internal aroma is pure, the soup is red and thick, and the bottom of the leaves is brown and thick. Kangzhuan tea is a daily necessity for Tibetan people, and it is also a good tea for them to entertain guests.
The above types of brick tea have their own characteristics. They not only occupy an important position in Chinese tea culture, but are also deeply loved by consumers at home and abroad.
Brick tea is made from various kinds of raw tea, which is dried and greened. After sifting, fanning, cutting, grinding and other processes, it becomes a semi-finished product. It is then steamed and pressed into bricks at high temperature. The production process of brick tea varies depending on the type, but it can generally be divided into the following main steps: The process of making tea bricks is as follows!
1.Screening
The equipment mainly includes bamboo sieves, which are divided into four types: lift sieve, head sieve, first sieve, second sieve, third sieve, fourth sieve, and coarse, medium, drizzle, bud sieve, iron sieve, raw powder sieve, and unfinished sieve. , all made of bamboo strips, and also include poking knives, picking boards, picking trays, baking ovens, binding boards, windmills, etc. The screening process is:
(1) Sifting tea: Tea leaves are different in thickness, age and tenderness. By sifting the tea multiple times, the shape of the tea leaves is neat and uniform, and the sediment and debris are removed at the same time.
(2) Poke tea: Except for Tianzidui tea leaves, the other piles are all cut to a certain length with a poke knife.
(3) Picking tea: Pick out thick tea stems and yellow pieces.
(4) Bundling tea: If the tea is thick, it needs to be bundled and stepped on. It is first steamed until soft and placed on a 45-degree bundling board in a cloth bag. Two people step on it from top to bottom, repeating it more than ten times to tighten it into strips.
(5) Fan tea: use the windmill to distinguish the weight and remove the dust and debris.
(6) Assemble the piles: According to the tenderness, length, and color, the four types of piles are assembled into sprinkle noodles and fillings, and then put into the machine to autoclave. Nowadays, the processing technology of black brick tea is relatively simple. It is generally divided into several processes such as screening, tea cutting, winnowing, and stacking, all of which are done by machinery instead of manual work.
2. suppress
(1) Steamed tea: After 1940, tea was wrapped in gauze and steamed in a drawer.In 1941, a steamer was used, which was quick and easy and shortened the steaming time.
(2) Brick pressing: Use a human-powered screw hand press, with four people in each machine. One person is responsible for picking up and delivering the tea leaves, one person is responsible for loading the boxes, one person is responsible for the screw lifting, one person is raking the tea leaves and setting the rope, and then four people insert the wooden sticks into the clouds. Disk hole, try your best to rotate to the left to compress the tea leaves.
(3) Brick removal: After 8 hours of cooling, the pressed tea leaves are slowly sent to the tea box to remove the tea bricks.
3. Dry
Use drying room to dry, the temperature gradually rises, dry until the moisture reaches 11%, and then it can be dried and packaged. The surface of black tea bricks must be smooth, with clear patterns, sharp edges and corners, consistent thickness, dark brown color, and no blackberry, white mold, penicillium and other miscellaneous bacteria. The brick length is 350 mm, the brick width is 180 mm, the brick thickness is 35 mm, and the net weight is 2 kg. The inner quality requires pure aroma or pine smoke aroma, orange-yellow or red-yellow soup color, and mellow taste. This is the prepared brick tea.
Brick tea not only has a unique taste and aroma, but also has many functions. Long-term drinking of brick tea can help digestion, effectively promote and regulate human metabolism, and play a certain role in health care and pathological prevention of the human body. Specifically, brick tea has many functions such as supplementing nutrition, helping to eliminate greasiness, lowering fat and weight loss, antioxidant, anti-cancer, lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar, sterilizing and anti-inflammatory, diuretic and detoxifying. These effects make brick tea widely used in health and medical fields.
Reduce lipids and lose weight: Brick tea has good fat degradation, anti-blood coagulation, fibrinogen dissolution and significant inhibition of platelet aggregation. It can also relax the blood vessel wall and increase the effective diameter of blood vessels, thereby inhibiting the inner wall of the aorta and coronary arteries. Atherosclerotic plaque formation. Brick tea contains a lot of tea polysaccharides, which can effectively eliminate body fat and have the effect of losing weight. From May 1990 to May 1991, the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital observed 55 hyperlipidemia patients among 155 veteran cadres in a cadre rest center who took black tea (3 grams per day) continuously for 180 days. In 50 patients who drank dark tea, their blood lipid content and blood peroxide activity decreased significantly.
Sterilization and anti-inflammatory: Brick tea contains a large amount of tea pigments such as theaflavins and thearubigins. These tea pigments are natural antioxidants, which can effectively scavenge free radicals and kill Staphylococcus aureus, Enterobacteriaceae and Maltobacillus botulinum. It has obvious inhibitory effect on other bacteria. In addition, brick tea can also inhibit the invasion of viruses such as influenza virus and rotavirus, helping to improve the body's immunity.
Help digestion and relieve greasiness: The caffeine, amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients in brick tea can improve digestive function and regulate fat metabolism. The stimulating effect of caffeine can also increase gastric juice secretion, which helps increase appetite and promote digestion. Therefore, brick tea has a good effect on removing greasiness and promoting digestion.
Whitening and beautifying: The antioxidant ingredients in brick tea can penetrate deep into the bottom layer of the skin, effectively resist the damage of free radicals, thereby delaying skin aging. At the same time, brick tea can also accelerate blood circulation, help the body eliminate toxins, and make the complexion more rosy and shiny. Long-term drinking of brick tea can make your skin glow with youthfulness.
Helps sleep: After a long period of fermentation in some brick teas (such as Jingyang Fu brick tea), the caffeine content gradually decreases, while theanine, which calms the nerves and protects brain nerve cells, is completely preserved. This ingredient has an excellent sleep-promoting effect when consumed, helping to improve sleep quality.
Anti-cancer: Cancer is one of the diseases that causes extremely high human mortality in the world. Since the late 1970s, scientists from all over the world have discovered that tea or tea extracts can inhibit the occurrence of various cancers. Hunan Agricultural University used high-throughput screening technology, the cutting-edge technology of modern drug screening, to conduct high-throughput screening research on the tumor cell model SGC7901 of dark tea, which proved that dark tea has a significant inhibitory effect on tumor cells.
Diuresis and detoxification: The diuretic function of caffeine in black tea is achieved by promoting the filtration rate of water in urine through the kidneys. At the same time, caffeine's stimulating effect on the bladder can not only assist diuresis, but also help sober up and relieve alcohol poisoning. At the same time, the tea polyphenols in black tea not only precipitate the nicotine in tobacco and excrete it from the body with urine, but also remove free radicals in smoke and reduce the toxic effects of smoke on the human body. Tea polyphenols have a strong adsorption effect on heavy metal poisons, so drinking more tea can also alleviate the toxic effects of heavy metals.
Lower blood sugar: The tea polysaccharide complex in dark tea is the main component of lowering blood sugar. Tea polysaccharide complex, often called tea polysaccharide, is a type of dark tea with complex and highly variable compositions. The results of measuring the tea polysaccharide content of several tea types show that dark tea has the highest tea polysaccharide content, and its components are more active than other tea types. This is because in fermented tea, glycosidase, protease, and hydrolase The role of polysaccharide and peptide chain is to form relatively short lengths. Short peptide chains and longer peptide chains are more easily absorbed and have stronger biological activity. This may be the reason why fermented tea, especially black tea, polysaccharides have excellent hypoglycemic effect. One of the reasons for other teas.
Lower blood pressure: Tea has been reported to have the effect of lowering blood pressure. According to Japanese reports, the unique amino acid theanine in tea can inhibit the increase in blood pressure by activating dopaminergic neurons. Here, it was also found that the caffeine and catechins in tea can relax blood vessel walls, increase the effective diameter of blood vessels, and lower blood pressure through vasodilation. China Lou Fuqing et al. found that tea pigment has significant anticoagulant effects, promotes fibrinolysis, prevents platelet adhesion and aggregation, inhibits the proliferation of arterial smooth muscle cells, and can also significantly reduce triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein in the serum of high-fat animals. , increases high-density lipoprotein in serum, has a significant inhibitory effect on ACE enzyme, and has a blood pressure lowering effect.
Supplement dietary nutrition: Brick tea is rich in nutrients, the most important ones are vitamins and minerals, as well as proteins, amino acids, sugars, etc. For the residents of the northwest who mainly eat beef, mutton and cheese and lack vegetables and fruits in their diet, long-term drinking of Hunan black tea is an important source of essential minerals and various vitamins for their human body. It is said to be the tea of life.
Brick tea has low moisture content. If the outer packaging of the product is intact, it should be stored at room temperature in a cool, ventilated, dry, and odor-free place to avoid sunlight, mold, deterioration, and odor absorption. If the tea bricks have been pried open, broken into pieces, or the packaging is damaged, they need to be placed in breathable and moisture-proof ceramic cans, tea boxes, or kraft paper bags to facilitate long-term storage and drinking.
The Tibetan method of cooking butter tea is: first cut and mash the brick tea, add water to cook, then filter the tea juice, pour it into a blender with butter and salt in advance, and stir continuously to fully mix the tea juice and butter into a milky white color. of juice. Afterwards, pour it into a teapot and serve. Tibetans mostly drink morning tea. After drinking several cups, when halfway through the last cup, they add rye flour to the tea to make a paste, commonly known as dregs. When drinking tea at lunch, usually add more wheat flour, butter and sugar to make a paste and serve it hot.
Mongolian people drink tea. Except for cities and agricultural areas where tea is brewed, almost all pastoral areas use iron pots (copper kettles) to brew tea, add a small amount of salt, and call it salty tea. This is a daily drinking method. When guests come or there is a festival, drink more milk tea. The method of making milk tea is to cut and mash the brick tea first, boil it with water for a few minutes, remove the tea residue, put it in a large pot, add milk, add water to boil, then put it in a copper pot, add an appropriate amount of salt, and it is ready. Salty and sweet milk tea. Some also add an appropriate amount of roasted fried rice to the tea soup (after the minced rice is fried, it is called fried rice). Mongolian herdsmen generally drink tea three times a day. Eat twice in the morning and afternoon, and drink tea once in the evening.
Uighurs make tea similarly to their Mongolian compatriots, but they have their own characteristics in how they drink it. Just like we usually eat vegetables, they drink it with soup and juice to make up for the lack of fruits and vegetables.
