Perfect smooth Chinese tea is just like good aged wine, no juices can compare or replace it..... 香滑的中國菜,跟陳年舊酒一樣,是沒有任何東西可以代替的.....

Master Leung Ka-Dong has been working at Ying Kee Tea House for almost 40 years. "What type of tea do you usually order when you eat dim sum?" asks Ying Kee Tea House英記茶莊 Master Leung Ka-Dong (梁家棟師傅). "I usually order white hair peony because my family always orders it," I reply. "Did you know that almost all restaurants mix their white teas with black to add flavour and colour?" he says. No, I did not know that. I did not know that it's only in the recent 50 to 60 year s that white, green and pu-erh have become Hong Kong 's most popular teas either. With a richer economy, Hong Kong people stirred away from simple black teas from India and Sri Lanka and began to enjoy tea for various health reasons or collect pu-erh tea like wine. Thanks to Master Leung, who has worked at Ying Kee Tea House since the early 1970s, I now know a little more about how to appreciate Chinese tea. Here are 12 things he told me about tea that no restaurateur would have:

1. Never drink tea on an empty stomach 別空肚喝茶 Always drink tea during or after a meal. Our stomachs are acidic and tea is alkalizing. Acid and alkaline combined have a bloating effect. 酸鹼中和會產生胃漲 2. Drink white tea if you are a smoker 吸煙者喝白茶 White tea is really good for the lungs and throat, so it is especially beneficial for smokers. A cup of white peony tea helps clear all the phlegm in our throats and cures coughs. 白毛牡丹能去痰,潤喉,止咳 3. You won’t be able to tell the quality of white tea by its colour 從顏色不能分別出白茶的品質 Most restaurants mix white peony tea with black tea to add colour and flavour because customers generally prefer tea that tastes richer and looks darker in colour.坊間白牡丹常有紅茶混入以增強色香 Pure white tea itself has hardly any flavour or colour compared to other teas. 4. Only fine dining Chinese restaurants serve screw shaped green tea只有高級食府才供應碧螺春 Genuine screw shaped green tea is the highest grade of green tea and the most expensive. At Ying Kee Tea House, it sells at HK$5,067 per kilogram (HK$380 per 75 gram bag). Produced only in Jiangsu Province Dong Ting Mountain , it’s also the rarest green tea in China , producing only about 1,000 kilograms a year.正宗洞庭碧螺春年產一百公斤,售價每斤五千多港圓。 It must be consumed fresh, within a year after picking the tea leaves. Screw shaped green tea of higher quality is best consumed within six months even. If it is tasteless, solvent or extremely bitter, that means it has already gone bad.此茶要新鮮飲用,久藏失香味苦。 But while it is certainly expensive, screw shaped green tea has a very particular taste that not everyone may like. Even when it is fresh, it tastes more bitter than other teas. For all those reasons, screw shaped green tea is only served at fine dining Chinese restaurants, usually at hotels. 5. Treat pu-erh tea like a digestible detergent to flush all the grease away普洱茶助消化,去油膩,降膽固醇。 Always pair oily food with pu-erh tea. Dim sum, no matter steamed or fried, contains lard. When you eat shrimp dumplings, there is always a piece of fatty pork in there to add flavour and fragrance. Pu-erh tea helps you rinse all the grease from the food out of your system. It aids digestion, blood circulation and lowers cholesterol levels. If you don’t have detergent at home, boil some pu-erh tea and use it to wash your dishes. It’s like a digestible detergent. 普洱茶可代替家用洗潔精。 6. Sweets go best with green tea甜品跟綠茶是最佳配搭。 Sweet food is best paired with tea that is more bitter. Loong cheng green tea helps moderate the sweetness of desserts.龍井能減輕甜品甜度。 Like pu-erh tea, drinking green tea helps lower cholesterol levels and break down fat.和普洱一樣,綠茶亦可去油膩降低膽固醇。 But while most teas are best brewed in boiling hot water, green teas like screw shaped green tea and loong cheng only need to be brewed in water that is about 75 to 85C degrees. If the water is too hot, it will be difficult to maintain the same fragrance in the second brew.泡綠茶水溫不能大沸,應維持在75至85度C之間。 7. Teh kuan yin goes best with spicy food鐵觀音配搭香辣菜式最妙。 Spicy foods are best paired with teh kuan yin because it has a bitter sweet effect. If you ever visit a Chiu Chow restaurant, they always serve teh kuan yin tea with their spicy dishes. 潮州菜館專供鐵觀音(又各溪茶) Plus, Chiu Chow city borders Shantou city and Fujian province, which is known for harvesting teh kuan yin leaves. 8. Fried food goes best with white tea煎炸食物與白茶配搭最宜 Basically, any type of fried or deep fried food goes well with white tea. In Chinese medicinal terms, fried food is considered dry hot.白茶清熱氣 White teas like white hair peony help release body heat. 9. Smell quality外普洱外,其他茶葉都有不同香味。無香味的茶肯定是過期。 Aside from pu-erh tea which is almost odourless, quality tea should always give off a fragrant smell. If you can’t smell the tea or see that it is very solvent, then it has probably expired. 10. You won’t be able to find good pu-erh tea at dim sum restaurants茶樓永遠找不到好的普洱 It is simply not cost-efficient. Pu-erh tea is like wine. The longer you store it, the richer it becomes. Storage for at least three to six years is optimal.普洱像洋酒一樣,越陳年越好。但儲藏普洱對茶樓來講不甚化算(可能陸羽除外) Regular pu-erh teas served at restaurants have generally been modified during the fermentation process to reduce storage time. By doing this, they lose whatever fragrance and flavour they originally had.食肆用的普洱大都是比較新的品種,所以香與味都大打折扣。 Good pu-erh tea should look very smooth and deep red in colour, not black like regular pu-erh tea.好做普洱茶香滑呈琥珀色,不是深褐色。 You can also test the quality of your pu-erh tea by the stain it leaves on your cup after drin king it. If you see a stain surrounding the rim of your cup, that means you are drinking regular or low quality pu-erh tea. If your cup is left with no stain after consumption, you are drinking pu-erh tea of high quality. 上等普洱茶喝清後杯邊不留痕跡。 11. Teh kuan yin, daffodil and oolong are all the same at dim sum restaurants普通茶樓食肆,鐵觀音,水仙及烏龍通常是同一種低級水仙茶 No matter which of the three you order, dim sum restaurants will serve you low grade daffodil tea. All three teas come under the same oolong tea category, yet they are very different in flavour. Teh kuan yin tastes more clear and fragrant. Oolong is stronger and more solvent. And daffodil is the purest of them all. 12. The best moments of tea enjoyment are when you have time最佳品茶時間是你有閒暇去享受的時候 Drinking tea is a matter of mood. And when I talk about mood, it mainly has to do with the condition of time. You’ve probably heard many rules about tea, from water temperature to colour. But at the end of the day, drinking tea is a very personal experience.別理所謂茶經。品茶是一種個人喜好,濃淡皆宜,有暇就好。 Some people like their tea boiling hot while others like theirs lukewarm. Some may like theirs stronger than others. So it’s all about time. We need time to brew that perfect cup of tea.