Top 10 Most Popular Chinese Teas

Overview of Chinese Tea

Tea is probably the most common liquid consumed in the world after water! There are so many styles and to avoid this from becoming a book, we will go through just those most commonly found in China.
It is known to be very healthy, and has been ingrained in the Chinese culture as tea originated from China. The habit and lifestyle of drinking tea in China began in the era of Shennong, back 4,700 years ago. The scientific name of the tea plant is Camellia sinensis (L.) O.Kuntze. The latin word “Sinensis” here means China – so even in the official scientific name it has China in it.
One of the most famous and the earliest Chinese pharmaceutical and medicine books, 神农本草经 (shén nóng běn cǎo jīng) , records “神农尝百草，日遇七十二毒，得荼而解之.” This describes the Emperor Shennong, who is famously known for his teachings on agriculture and herbal drugs, tasting hundreds of varieties of herbs, and was poisoned (but luckily didn’t die) by 72 of them. He drank tea to help detoxify his body. The character, 荼 (chá) was created to represent Chinese tea.
Here is the evolution of the character tea, an image of 荼 becoming 茶:
The character 荼 (tú) was the main name (character) representing tea before the Tang dynasty. But besides tea, this character has many other meanings and pronunciations, including thistle and flowering grass. As drinking tea became more and more popular and widespread, the usage of the character of tea became more and more frequent. People removed one of the 一 strokes in the character 荼 to form a new character 茶, (chá) and began to use 茶 instead of 荼.

Six Styles Of Chinese Tea

Back when I was living in America, I think I only knew about green tea and red tea – and yes, it was normally those packets of instant Lipton tea. Yikes! Here in China I have learned about six main styles of tea:

1. Green Tea 绿茶 (lǜ chá)
2. Oolong Tea 青茶 (qīng chá)/ 乌龙茶 (wū lóng chá)
3. Black Tea 黑茶 (hēi chá)
4. Yellow Tea 黄茶 (huáng chá)
5. Red Tea 红茶 (hóng chá)
– What we in the West called Black tea!

6. White Tea 白茶 (bái chá)

In today’s article we will go through each of them on a high level as well as highlighting some of the most important species within these groups.

How Do You Classify These Styles?

Sure, you wonder, why is green tea called green tea and red tea called red tea? I was thinking it was determined by the color they make when “brewed” with hot water. But Chamcen corrected me and explained that it was due to fermentation percentage. Pretty amazing, Chinese people definitely know their tea!
Here is a chart of the degree of fermentation each style of tea has been through:

• Green tea: 0%
• Yellow tea: 10 – 20%
• White tea: 20 – 30%
• Oolong tea: 30 – 60%
• Red tea: 80 – 90%
• Black tea: 100%

What is fermentation? Yes, I had the same question when typing up today’s article. From what I have researched, it is the process of putting the freshly picked tea leaves and putting them through an oxidation process.

How We Ranked These Teas

So as mentioned before, we are focusing on the top ten teas in this article, else this post would turn into a book! So naturally you may wonder how we selected these top ten. As sales data is not so easily aggregated here for tea sales, we cross referenced a few Chinese sources as well as using our own best judgement within the Written Chinese office.
We will work to updating this article in the future, and your input and comments at the end of this post will help us in understanding the general publics idea as well. Don’t be heartbroken if your favorite tea isn’t here. After reading it, share with us your favorite and let’s have some fun.

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