Comments on: Killing the Green

By: Mei

Mei — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:13:00 +0000

Hi Tony,

Can I share your article with my students? Your article is really helpful for them to comprehend the tea production.

By: Tony Gebely

Tony Gebely — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 05:06:00 +0000

Richard, thanks a lot for the information, this is great!

By: Richard Zhang

Richard Zhang — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 02:22:25 +0000

Hi Tony:

It is a good article. Especially impressd by your analogy of apple, very great! For your question, my understanding is that the “Qing” doesn’t refer to the color of the leaves but the aroma. That is to say the “Qing” in the name of ” Sha Qing” means”Qing Qi”(in Chinese, it means grassy aroma) instead of “Qing She”( green color).

By: Hannah

Hannah — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:27:40 +0000

Hi, this is great information to learn because I deal with Chinese green teas on a daily basis but never green teas from other countries. So thank you for sharing this information with us!

By: Tony Gebely

Tony Gebely — Sat, 26 May 2012 03:12:57 +0000

Nathan, Thanks a lot for the kind words. I’ve been researching tea for several years. I’m now working on a book as well. I looked up your blog and your work in Austin, very impressive! Keep spreading tea culture!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:51:58 +0000

First of all, I’d like to say that It’s refreshing to come across educated tea dialogue originating in the US. I’ve been propagating tea culture in Austin, TX after returning home from many years in Asia–mostly in Taiwan–and it’s taken a lot of energy!

After reading your article, I was scrolling down to make a very similar comment to Brandon. The Chinese word “青” refers to a blue-green “vegetal” color. It’s the same word use for leafy greens in Chinese, therefore I’ve always thought of it as referring to plant “life.” I didn’t know about sha-qing (殺青) specifically though, so this really shed a bit of light on some things I was wondering about myself–especially as to the flavor difference of the steamed Japanese teas versus roastedness of Chinese green.

appreciate your work

加油!!

By: Brandon

Brandon — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:28:59 +0000

Hi Tony,
I think the misunderstanding comes from taking the common Chinese translation too literally.
Shaqing translated as killing the green is probably good enough, but you have to consider that qing 青 is referring to something broader than the color of the leaves (which is in fact 绿 lu).
Qing can mean raw, fresh, young, etc… So it is correctly referring to the fact that you are killing the enzymes or the rawness of the tea that leads to spoilage… the vegetative “greenness,” not the color of the leaf.

By: Tony Gebely

Tony Gebely — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:32:40 +0000

Brandon, thanks for the information, twitter user: @xuetingni also just shared with me this interesting information: “The ancient Chinese dried bamboo strips over fire before writing on them, to prevent rotting and make them easier to write on this process was the original ShaQing, after drying the green skin is peeled off the bamboo strip for better writing surface sometimes people would write on green skin first, then peel the bamboo skin off to make amendments, literally killing the green.”

By: Alex Zorach

Alex Zorach — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:22:02 +0000

I think this is a great topic, and I think it sheds a lot of light on how to classify teas, as well as how the teas actually taste. When I started learning about the process of heating teas to stop the enzymes that cause oxidation, I feel like a lot of the distinctions between the different types of tea, and the relationships between their production and their flavor, aroma, and color.

I’m not sure about your point about the grassy quality in tea though. All green teas have been heated during their production, yet I find many of them have a very potent grassy aroma, and in comparison, I find white teas (which have not been heated to the same degree) tend to have much less of this aroma.

So I supect this grassy quality may actually arise to some degree from the production itself, which of course involves heating. The answer to this one may also be a bit subjective too, as people experience tastes and aromas differently, and they don’t necessarily mean the same thing when they talk about a “grassy” quality in tea. It’s much the same as how teas with very different aromas can both be described as having an “orchid” aroma (compare Tong Cheng small orchid, to Qi Lan oolong).