Gunpowder Green Tea is an economic green tea of China. Huge quantity of it is exported. The biggest gunpowder green tea import country is Morocco. Morroco Mint is a famous beverage in the menu of restaurants worldwide. Now this tea is widely consumed in more and more countries. The name Gunpowder was invented around 150 years ago. Because this tea is tightly rolled into the granule shape and has the bright dark green color, which looks like Gunpowder. Earlier before the birth of the name gunpowder, this similar tea had exisited in China. At least these two, Quan Gang Hui Bai (made in Shaoxing of Zhejiang) and Yong Xi Huo Qing (made in Jingxian of Anhui) can be considered as higher grade of Gunpowder Green, although both of them developed their own names for domestic market. They are made by tender tea shoots harvested in early Spring. While most of the gunpowder green are made by more grown material harvested in late Spring, Summer and Autumn.

                                                                                                        Morroco Mint
Gunpowder green tea is produced in quite a few Chinese provicnes, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei. The processing of gunpowder green is quite straightforward. Frying, Rolling and Frying. The purpose of first frying is killing. It is conductd by iron drum. Because this is mass production. The purpose of last frying is drying and meanwhile tightening the tea body into round granule (gunpowder shape). The temperautre of last frying is lower and lasts long time, and also the drum would be changed a few times to shape the tea body. During the frying, the rotation of drum tightens the tea body into round granule shape gradually.
How to judge the quality of Gunpowder Green
Usually the good quality Gunpowder Green has tightly round tea body and the size is even. In color, it is true that the greener the better. (Green means the material is harvested earlier and tender. The material is higher grade). Most of the gunpowder green tea turns to be greyish in color. Because the material is grown and big in size, it has to require extra drum rotation to tighten the tea body. The rotation makes the tea move and produce friction among the surface of tea leaves. The friction makes the color turn to be greyish in color. To enhance the tightness of granule, some gunpowder green was added by rice starch during the drum frying. The rice starch is sticky. So it can help make the tight tea body of gunpowder green tea. It is easy to tell if the tea has additive of rice starch. Hold the tea tightly in the hand and then release. The one with rice starch additive would have quite many granules stuck on the hand. To make the bright color of tea, there was one period that a kind of stone powder was aslo added to the tea during the processing, which can make the tea have very tight and heavy tea body, and appear shiny dark color. Due to the unhealthy fact of stone powder, it was prohibited around 15 years ago. It is not difficult to check if the tea has additives of rice starch and stone powder by brewing. The brewing liquor would be cloudy and has powder sediments brought by rice starch and stone powder.
Refine processing of gunpowder green makes the grades 3505AAA, AA, A, 3505B, 9375, 9475…. These are made by the size and shape of the product.
The appereciation of taste of gunpowder green as a mass product is diverse. Some ppl like sweet mellow taste, some ppl prefer strong taste, some ppl even chase the vintage taste (There is demand of vintage gunpowder in some market) … But we can say for sure if the tea has stale flavor or sour taste, the quality is not good. Because that’s the result of that the fresh material was not processed in time or inproper. And if the tea is smoky, the quality is not good. Smoke is usually brought by fuel, or over frying of tea.
To make a batch of high quality gunpowder green, we used the material from an organic tea garden in West Hubei. The altitude of the tea garden is 1200m. The harvesting time is end of April. The tea shoot is still very tender in the end of April from the very high altitude. Beacuse of the tenderness of material, it doesn’t need extra frying to make the tight round tea body. Thus the tea keeps the vivid green color. The taste is mellow sweet and aftertaste is deep. The flavor is floral. It is the top grade organic gunpowder green tea.