It's Not Good pu-erh if no Returning Sweetness

Posted by naturalpuerh on October 3rd, 2019

Functions of good pu-erh
1. Fight fatigue and improve mental alertness and focus.
2. Reduce blood pressure, blood sugar and blood lipids.
3. Antioxidant & Antu-aging.
4. Inhibit the increasing of cancer cell.

Some teas are based on fresh, fragrant, sweet and bitter, sputum, acid and other indicators to judge whether it is good tea, such as green tea, black tea, green tea, and some teas have a different approach, using watering and returning sweetness as the standard for judging good tea. In a sense, it can be said that Pu-erh tea without returning to sweetness is not a good Pu-erh tea!

So what is the return? How is returning sweetness produced?

In the process of drinking tea, friends who love tea have found that many teas have a bitter taste when they are drinking. Then, some tea people thought that this tea is not a good tea. In fact, the bitterness of tea is not all bad. Is it good tea? The taste of tea soup is determined by the comprehensive reaction of people's taste senses to the taste substances in tea. Different teas have different tastes due to the different types, contents and proportions of their taste components.

First, what is "returning to sweetness"?Returning sweetness is a natural sensory effect that people often drink tea and a positive evaluation of the taste of fine tea. The returning effect is a specific taste mainly formed by the combination of bitterness and sweetness. It is a kind of sweet and bitter taste at the entrance. It has a long aftertaste in the mouth, and the sweetness gradually exceeds the bitterness and taste over time. A taste that ends in sweetness. The sensory experience is mainly characterized by: “the entrance is slightly bitter, the aftertaste is sweet and sweet”, “the entrance is bitter with sweetness, then the bitterness is gradually disappeared, the sweetness is getting longer, the sweet aftertaste is longer than the bitterness” and so on.Second, what are the reasons for the tea soup "returning to sweetness"?The first argument is that it is the result of a sensational transformation. The deputy director of the Department of Tea Science at Zhejiang University expressed his opinion in his book "Tea Culture and Tea Health": "Tea contains tea polyphenols, which can bind to proteins and form a layer of impervious in the oral cavity. Membrane, local muscle contraction in the mouth causes the squeakyness of the mouth, which makes us feel that the tea that just drank will have a bitter feeling. If the tea polyphenol content is suitable, a film with only one or two monolayers or bilayers is formed. The film thickness is moderate, and there is a smell in the mouth at the beginning. After the film breaks, the local muscles of the mouth begin to recover, and the astringent transforms the feeling of returning to sweetness and watering. Therefore, he believes that "returning to sweetness" is the result of the combination of tea polyphenols and proteins.Another way of saying that "returning to Sweetness" is an illusion of the mouth, that is, "contrast effect." Professor McBurney and Professor Bartoshuk published in 1979, "The Relationship between Different Taste Quality and Stimulant", "Sweetness and bitterness are relative concepts. When you taste sweeteners such as sucrose, you will find that water is bitter. And when you taste the bitter substances such as caffeine and quinine, you will feel the water is sweet." This phenomenon is a contrast effect, so many people also believe that this illusion may also be one of the factors that cause return.

3. What are the ingredients that may cause “returning to Sweetness”?

1. Tea polyphenols and total sugar: Xu Yongquan and others use the electronic tongue (electronic tongue is an intelligent recognition electronic system developed by mimicking the human taste mechanism) to analyze the taste of tea. Studies have shown that the bitterness of tea soup has a significant positive correlation with the taste of returning sugar, and the two complement each other; the content of tea polyphenols and total sugar has a significant positive correlation with the intensity of tea soup, indicating that tea polyphenols and total sugars are within a certain concentration range. Helps improve the sweetness of the tea soup. For example, Pu-erh tea has a higher content of tea polyphenols and is more obvious, which is also a proof.

2, flavonoids: Although the tea industry has not reported that flavonoids can produce "returning sweetness", but it has been reported that flavonoids are the substances produced by olives. The source of bitterness of olives is due to its special chemical composition: such as oleuropein, flavonoids and polyphenols, in which flavonoids are higher than other foods. The bitter substances in bitter gourd are bitter gourd saponin and bitter melon glycosides; the bitter substances in Kuding tea are also glycosides and a small amount of flavonoids. Glycosides only show bitterness, so when you eat bitter gourd, you only feel bitterness, and there is almost no feeling of returning to Sweetness. The taste of flavonoids is very special. It shows a bitter taste at the beginning of the mouth and a natural sweetness after a while. The flavonoids contained in olives are the main reason for their return to sweetness, and the higher the flavonoid content, the more obvious the returning sweetness and the more mellow the odor. The flavonoids in tea are about 3%-4% of dry matter. However, the mechanism of flavonoids back to sugar is still under study and it is not very clear.

3, orsweetnessic acids: orsweetnessic acids in tea will stimulate the secretion of salivary glands to produce a "sweet and return to sweet" feeling. There are many kinds of orsweetnessic acids in tea, and the content is about 3% of the total dry matter. Most of the orsweetnessic acids in tea are free orsweetnessic acids, such as malic acid, citric acid, succinic acid, oxalic acid, etc., and other orsweetnessic acids are formed during the tea making process. In the process of withering and greening of tea, the content of orsweetnessic acids will increase. Therefore, it is easier to feel the long-lasting returning of oolong tea, and the green tea that has been properly spread will show a certain degree of returning sweetness.

4. Sugar: Tea soup contains polysaccharides. These polysaccharides have no sweet taste, but have a certain viscosity, so they will stay in the mouth. Saliva contains salivary amylase, which catalyzes the decomposition of starch water into maltose, while maltose has a sweet taste. It takes a certain time for the enzyme to break down the polysaccharide, and this reaction time difference creates a feeling of "returning to the sweetness".

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