The Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties, was the peak period of the Chinese kite. The kites underwent great development in size, design, decoration and flying skills. Literators at that time made kite by themselves, and sent to relatives and friends as a gift, regarding it a literary pursuit. In recent years, kite flying has publicized as a sports activity as well as entertainment.
To make a kite, first, the right kind of bamboo strips must be selected for the frame. It should be thick and strong for a kite of large dimensions in order to stand the wind pressure. The regular paper or sometime silk is used to cover the frame. Silk kites, especially, are more durable and generally of higher artistic value. Third, painting the kite may be done in each way. Kites could be generally divided into two categories: the Hard Wing and the Soft Wing. The Hard Wing can endure more air pressure and competitively fly higher, whilst the latter can fly farther, although it can not fly as high. In patterns, besides the traditional ones of animals, birds, worms, fishes, new patterns of human images emerged in modern times.

China has a large area of territory. As a traditional culture and folk art, kite has formed unique style of different regions during its development, among which the most famous ones are the styles of Beijing, Tianjin, Weifang in Shangdong Province, Sichuan and Guangdong Province.

"Four Famous Embroideries of China

Xiang Embroidery

Xiang embroidery is well known for its time-honored history, excellent craftsmanship and unique style. The earliest piece of Xiang embroidery was unearthed at the No 1 Tomb of Mawangdui, Changsha City of the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220). The weaving technique was almost the same as the one used in modern times, which demonstrated that embroidery had already existed in the Han Dynasty. In its later development, Xiang Embroidery absorbed the characteristics of traditional Chinese paintings and formed its own unique characteristics. Xiang embroidery experienced its heyday at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and in the early Republic of China (early 20th century), even surpassing Su embroidery. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiang embroidery was further improved and developed to a new level.
Xiang embroidery uses pure silk, hard satin, soft satin and nylon as its material, which is connected with colorful silk threads. Absorbing the spirit of Chinese paintings, the embroidery reaches a high artistic level. Xiang embroidery crafts include valuable works of art, as well as materials for daily use.

Shu Embroidery

Also called Chuan embroidery, Shu embroidery is the general name for embroidery products in areas around Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Shu embroidery enjoys a long history. As early as the Han Dynasty, Shu embroidery was already famous. The central government even designated an office in this area for its administration. During the Five Dynasties and Ten States periods (907-960), a peaceful society and large demand provided advanced conditions for the rapid development of the Shu Embroidery industry. Shu embroidery experienced its peak development in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), ranking first in both production and excellence. In the mid-Qing Dynasty, the Shu embroidery industry was formed. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shu embroidery factories were set up and the craft entered a new phase of development, using innovative techniques and a larger variety of forms.
Originating among the folk people in the west of Sichuan Province, Shu embroidery formed its own unique characteristics: smooth, bright, neat and influenced by the geographical environment, customs and cultures. The works incorporated flowers, leaves, animals, mountains, rivers and human figures as their themes. Altogether, there are 122 approaches in 12 categories for weaving. The craftsmanship of Shu embroidery involves a combination of fine arts, aesthetics and practical uses, such as the facings of quits, pillowcases, coats, shoots and screen covers.

Yue Embroidery

Also called Guang embroidery, Yue embroidery is a general name for embroidery products of the regions of Guangzhou, Shantou, Zhongshan, Fanyu and Shunde in Guangdong Province. According to historical records, in the first year of Yongyuan's reign (805) during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a girl named Lu Meiniang embroidered the seventh volume of the Fahua Buddhist Scripture on a piece of thin silk 30 cm long. And so, Yue embroidery became famous around the country. The prosperous Guangzhou Port of the Song Dynasty promoted the development of Yue embroidery, which began to be exported at that time. During the Qing Dynasty, people animal hair as the raw material for Yue embroidery, which made the works more vivid. During Qianlong's reign (1736-1796) of the Qing, an industrial organization was established in Guangzhou. At that time, a large number of craftsmen devoted themselves to the craft, inciting further improvements to the weaving technique. Since 1915, the work of Yue embroidery garnered several awards at the Panama Expo.
Influenced by national folk art, Yue embroidery formed its own unique characteristics. The embroidered pictures are mainly of dragons and phoenixes, and flowers and birds, with neat designs and strong, contrasting colors. Floss, thread and gold-and-silk thread embroidery are used to produce costumes, decorations for halls and crafts for daily use.

Su Embroidery

With a history of more than 3,000 years, Su embroidery is the general name for embroidery products in areas around Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The craft, which dates back to the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280), became a sideline of people in the Suzhou area during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Well known for its smoothness and delicateness, Su embroidery won Suzhou the title City of Embroidery in the Qing Dynasty. In the mid and late Qing, Su embroidery experienced further developments involving works of double-sided embroidering. There were 65 embroidery stores in Suzhou City. During the Republic of China period (1912-1949), the Su embroidery industry was in decline due to frequent wars and it was restored and regenerated after the founding of new China. In 1950, the central government set up research centers for Su embroidery and launched training courses for the study of embroidery. Weaving methods have climbed from 18 to the present 40.
Su embroidery features a strong, folk flavor and its weaving techniques are characterized by the following: the product surface must be flat, the rim must be neat, the needle must be thin, the lines must be dense, the color must be harmonious and bright and the picture must be even. Su embroidery products fall into three major categories: costumes, decorations for halls and crafts for daily use, which integrate decorative and practical values. Double-sided embroidery is an excellent representative of Su embroidery.

Introduction of Folk music

When discussing Han Chinese music, it is common to distinguish two major styles: northern and southern. The styles correspond to the two major geographical and cultural areas where most Han people live. Although both styles emanate from the general Han Chinese culture, they differ in detail because of environmental conditions. The north is cold, dry, and windy. The hardships of life are reflected in the high-pitched, tense, and agitated style of folk song. The south, on the other hand, has mild weather and much rain. Life seems to be easier, and the folk songs of the south are generally lyrical and gentle in nature. Chinese music today is also influenced by Western musical concepts, which is an inevitable consequence of historical and social change.
Musical Styles
The common belief that the Chinese scale is a pentatonic scale (without half steps) is only partly correct. The Han Chinese has at least three forms of a seven-tone scale (See figure 1 in Han Chinese Music Scales). They also use various forms of a five-tone pentatonic scale (See figure 2 in Han Chinese Music Scales).
Southern Chinese folk songs tend to progress in more conjunct motion and smoother lines and emphasize the intervals of thirds and fifths. Northern melodies tend to progress in more disjunct, angular motion, and emphasize intervals of a fourth. These tendencies in the use of melodies are related to the tonal characteristics of the contrasting dialects of the two areas.
Except in special cases (such as free-rhythm introductions), most Chinese music is in duple rhythm. This fondness for duple rhythm (the Western equivalent of 2/4 and 4/4) can be attributed to the belief in the principle of natural duality (such as the female-male or yin-yang relationship). Chinese rhythm patterns may also reflect the Confucian Zhongyong concept: a doctrine of the mean that stresses moderation and balance. However, the weak-beat to strong-beat stresses in Western music are not necessarily used. Triple meter is rare, even in modern folk compositions. Syncopation, on the other hand, is the norm rather than the exception.
Chinese instrumental music is traditionally heterophonic if it is performed on more than one instrument or for an instrument and voice. Although Chinese music does not use the triadic, four-part harmonic progressions of Western music, harmony may occur occasionally. In fact, the sheng mouth organ produces fourths and fifths when played in the traditional manner, and some qin and zheng zither passages have two or more pitches sounding together when the musicians pluck two or more strings simultaneously. The Chinese people's fondness for clarity may have prevented them from developing a heavy musical texture.
Perhaps the most intricate aspect of traditional Chinese music, and of much East Asian music, is the use of nuance in instrumental and vocal timbre. Even when playing one instrument, there are minute differences in timbre production of a single tone. Much attention is placed on the production and control of single tones; each tone is regarded as a musical entity. The best example of this is heard in qin zither music.
Vocal Music
Vocal music is also complicated because of complex tonal inflections and the intricacies of the Chinese language. For example, even though Chinese words are monosyllabic, a singer takes great care in enunciating the head (beginning), belly (middle), and tail (end) of each word in Kun opera and Nanguan music. Therefore, timbre in Chinese music has a deeper meaning than simply tone color as an end in itself.
Chinese vocal quality is often described as being high-pitched and nasal. This is generally true, but there are regional differences. The northern style of singing (such as Peking opera) tends to be higher and shriller than the southern style of singing (such as Kun opera or Nanguan). This north-south contrast in vocal quality can even be heard in the local Baiguan (northern-style theater) and Nanquan (southern-style theater or lyric song) on the island of Taiwan.
Instruments
Thousands of indigenous and Sinicized musical instruments exist in China, but the Chinese seem to favor chordophones and aerophones. The famous term silk and bamboo refers to the ancient use of stringed instruments with silk strings and wind instruments made of bamboo. Of all the chordophones, the qin zither is by far the most venerated. It is depicted in many paintings and mentioned in classic literature. Next in importance to the qin zither is the zheng zither. In the past, solos and small ensembles were more characteristic of traditional Chinese music making; the large Chinese orchestra with a baton-waving conductor is a product of the twentieth century.
The pipa lute originated in Central Asia and is an instrument of great virtuosic possibilities. It is the subject of many paintings and poems and has held a societal position similar to that of the guitar in Western culture. Currently, the erhu, or two-stringed fiddle, is the most popular instrument in China. It originated in the northern tribes and is available in many sizes and variations. This fiddle is the violin of the modern Chinese orchestra. The sanxian lute is a banjo-like instrument that is used to accompany narrative singing. The yangqin is a many-stringed hammer dulcimer that originated in Persia. Its function is somewhat like that of the piano: it serves as either a solo instrument or an accompanying instrument.
In the aerophone category, di or disi side-blown flutes are the most numerous. The xiao end-blown flute is also a popular instrument. Perhaps the most exotic wind instrument is the sheng, a mouth organ that can produce many notes simultaneously. A popular folk wind instrument is the suona, a double-reed instrument that evolved from the Middle Eastern zurna. Because of recent archaeological discoveries, Chinese musicians have had a revived interest in the ancient bianzhong (bronze bell chimes) and bianqing (stone chimes). Variations of many Chinese musical instruments can be found in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia.
Tradition and Folk Songs
Westerners sometimes describe Chinese music as loud. The Chinese themselves consider the northern style more dynamic and energetic and the southern style softer and more graceful. All of these characterizations are oversimplified, as the dynamics in Chinese music actually vary according to the nature of the musical genres and instruments. The classical music of Confucian scholars, such as qin zither music and lyric songs, is naturally soft. Players of pipa lute music are capable of expressing a full range of dynamics. Music for the suona is loud and piercing because of the instrument's construction and its function as an outdoor instrument. Theater orchestra music is loud because it was originally played outdoors in a festive atmosphere. Because of the many factors affecting dynamics in Chinese music, there is no one concept that can adequately describe them.
With the exception of work songs and shange (mountain songs), most Han Chinese folk songs, like most songs in Western folk music, are constructed in strophic form. Chinese folk music, however, uses fewer refrains. Typically, a folk song consists of two or four phrases of equal length; each phrase contains a new musical idea. Two-phrase songs are called question-answer songs, and four-phrase songs are open (qi), inheriting (cheng), turned (shuan), and closed (he) songs, all of which are terms borrowed from literary writing techniques. Much of Chinese opera music is based on a more complex melodic and rhythmic motivic system called Banqian.1
Of all the instrumental forms of Chinese music, the most popular are suites and variations. These forms are not, however, entirely equivalent to their Western counterparts. A Chinese suite is a series of musical movements that are loosely connected. These movements may be independent selections that do not have an apparent melodic or rhythmic relationship, or they may be related for programmatic reasons.
A major characteristic of Chinese instrumental variations is the use of identification motives called the hetou (refrain head) or hewei (refrain tail) that appear in the beginning and end of each movement. Again, except for these refrain motives, there might be no other relationship between the variations and the refrains or among the variations themselves. Sometimes, a movement appears several times among the other movements in a suite; this is considered a variation technique. Due to Western influence, ABA form has become extremely popular in modern instrumental folk music.
The Chinese have traditionally shown a fondness for extra-musical connotations, so Program music, poetic titles, and descriptions of compositions are popular. The existence of a sophisticated literary class is responsible for shaping this tradition, which is found not only in old music but also in modern socialist and so-called revolutionary work.
Derivation of National Orchestral Music

More than 2,000 years ago, there were many instruments in China, including bell, chime, drum and Xun (an egg-shaped, holed wind instrument). In the Zhou Dynasty (11th century - 771BC) and Spring and Autumn (770-476BC) and Warring States (475-221BC) period, the instruments totaled 80 kinds. During the period of the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC), the Han Dynasty (206BC-25AD), the Three Kingdoms (220-280), the Jin Dynasty (317-420), the Southern and Northern Dynasties (386-589) and Sui (581-618) and Tang Dynasties (618-907), there appeared instruments of Hengchui (like today's bamboo flute), Qiangdi (a musical instrument of the Qiang), Bi, bronze drum and waist drum, etc. They were all key instruments in national orchestral music.
There appeared more wind instruments, plucked string instruments and bowed string instruments during the period of the Five Dynasties (907-960), the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
National Orchestral Music was well developed in ancient times. The most influential orchestras in history are wind music (Guchuiyue) in the Han Dynasty and Yanyue in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The first one mainly consists of percussion instruments and the latter one focuses on tender music.
Traditional Chinese ensemble instrumental music has diverse origins, and forms of arrangement, performance and transmission. Generally speaking, geographic origin is its most distinguishing characteristic: Percussion and wind ensembles native to the northern region include Xi'an percussion and wind, Shanxi Province's Badatao, the orchestras of central Hebei Province, southwest Shandong Province's percussion and wind, Liaoning Province's percussion and wind and the Shipan music of Luoyang City. Native to the south are the gongs and drums of eastern Zhejiang Province, the shiln gongs and drums of southern Jiangsu Province and Fuzhou, the Longchui of Quanzhou and the Shifan of southwest Fujian Province. In the string and wind category are the Southern Tunes of Fujian, the poetry accompanied on string instruments of Chaozhou, Guangdong Music, the string and wind music of south of the Yangtze River and the northern string music.
The distribution of the artistic groups that played the various types of Chinese folk music was connected with the system of managing music of the feudal imperial court. Generally speaking, the locations of the imperial capitals in ancient times are the centers of the transmission, orchestras and maestros of folk music today. For example, Xi'an percussion music dates from the days when Xi'an was the capital of the Tang Dynasty; the Daxiangguo Temple music of Kaifeng emerged when that city was the capital of the Song Dynasty; and the Zhihua Temple music of Beijing and the wind orchestra music of Hebei Province have associations with the days when Beijing was the capital of the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Hebei's Chengde City, which is not far from Beijing, was the summer resort of the Qing emperors, and local musicians can still play the court music of that time, despite the fact that the dynasty disappeared long ago. This makes it easy to understand why so many farmer-musicians can have such comparatively high artistic attainments. This is an important component of the Chinese people's musical artistry.
Among the diverse musical instruments in China, those from the ethnic minorities also hold an important position, such as northwest orchestras that perform On Illi Muqam, the southwest Lusheng orchestras that use various kinds of Lusheng (reed-pipe wind instrument), and north orchestras that use horse-head stringed instrument, traditional Chinese four-stringed fiddle, Chinese trichord sanxian and so on. The forms of these orchestras are also employed by local orchestras.
With the development of national orchestral music after the founding of the People's Republic of China, some new-type national musical orchestras gradually emerged. They reflect the fine Chinese tradition and feature distinct uniqueness in sound effects and tamber. New national orchestras continue to play important roles, and have embarked on the world stage

Relevant stories
Cai Yan and Her Hujia Shibapai

Hujia Shibapai (Eighteen Songs on a Nomad Flute) leaves its landmark in the history of Chinese Guqin music. Its female composer, Cai Yan, showed her musical talent at her early years. When she was only seven or eight years old, her extraordinarily acute hearing and distinguished music sense to identify the notes of different strings of Guqin surprised her father Cai Yi, a famous musician.
Cai Yan experienced a life of frustration. When the Huns invaded the Central Plains, she was captured and taken to the remote northern grassland of the Huns. The king of the Huns was deeply attracted by her artistic talent. Cai soon became the king's wife and had a son and daughter, but she never stopped missing her hometown in the Central Plains. With years passing by, the Huns were driven out of the Central Plains and Cai Yan was redeemed and allowed to go home to help her old father sort out his scholar works. Tortured by parting from her husband and her children, Cai composed the famous melody Hujia Shiba Pai, a perfect reflection of her rough life and her deep yearning for her children. Until now, this famous melody is still one of the repertoires of Guqin concerts.

Tail-burnt Guqin

Among the Four Great Guqin in Chinese music history, the one named Tail-burnt has its interesting legend.
Cai Yi, an outstanding historian and musician in the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), once found that a cook was using a piece of paulownia wood, the first-class material to make Guqin, to cook his meal. To everyone's surprise, Cai dragged the wood out of the fire with his bare hands. After explaining the function of paulownia wood to the cook, Cai happily took the wood home and made a refined Guqin. Because the wood was burnt at its part of tail, it was later named Tail-burnt Guqin.
Guqin is also called the seven-stringed Qin. The body is a long and narrow sound box made of wood. It is 130cm long, 20cm wide, and 5cm thick. The surface is generally made of paulownia wood or China fir, and has seven strings stretched along it. On the edges are 13 inlaid jade markers. Catalpa wood is used for the base, and there are two holes, one big and one small (called the "phoenix pool" and "dragon pond", respectively) to emit the sound. The fingering techniques are known as recital, rubbing, plucking, concentration, floating notes and harmonious notes (same measure, five measure and octave). The instrument is rich in tone color, with airy, floating notes, and simple and solid scattered notes.

Confucius and Music

Confucius, the famous Chinese thinker and educator in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC), was also an outstanding musician. Confucius not only could play many kinds of musical instruments but also was good at composing and singing.
His valuable modest personality attributed to his achievement in music. After he learned Guqin from the musician Shi Xiangzi for some days, the instructor said his performance was "good". Confucius, however, was not satisfied with the progress and kept training himself for a longer time. After practicing for another couple of days, his performance was regarded as "excellent" by the instructor, but Confucius still did not believe that he had reached the perfect performance because he could not feel the spirit of the melody when he played the Guqin. It is not until he finally realized and showed the inner spirit of the melody that Confucius stopped practicing. His perseverance won himself the respect from Shi Xiangzi. Even today, Confucius's edification of "Being insatiable in learning" is still regarded as a motto by most people.

Liu San Jie (Third Sister Liu)

Liu San Jie (Third Sister Liu) and her stories are very popular among the Zhuang people in southwest Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
According to the local tale, Liu San Jie was born in a village along the Liujiang River of Guangxi in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). She was not only beautiful but also good at singing folk songs. At the age of 17, Liu San Jie fell in love with a handsome young man who was also a good folk singer. The two swore never separate in their lives.
The peaceful happiness was, however, broken by a hooligan in the village who had been for a long time attracted by Liu's beauty. This evil man decided to take Liu San Jie by force. He got his chance on a moonlight night when Liu and her lover were sitting on a big rock at riverside to enjoy the beauty of the moon. Suddenly, a gang of hooligans surrounded them. Liu San Jie and her lover had no way to escape, with no hesitation, the couple jumped into the roaring Liujiang River, hand in hand.
Nowadays, on the day of March 3, local people will gather along the riverside of the Liujiang River, organizing a folk-song competition to mourn Liu San Jie.

The Horse-Headed Qin and its Origin

The top of the neck of the horse-headed stringed instrument is carved in the shape of a horse's head, hence the name, and it is the representative instrument of the horse-riding Mongolian people. The sound box is trapezoid in shape, and decorated with ethnic motifs. The instrument has two strings with a four-octave range, and it is played with a horsetail-hair bow on the outside of the strings. Double tones can be played on it.
Its hazy tone color is suitable for expressing soft and mellow moods. Its haunting melodies can often be heard on the vast Mongolian grasslands; whether in solo performance or accompanying folksongs, its quavering notes, using the third or fourth octave, sound like the human voice.
Besides its unique enchantment, the Horse-Headed Qin also has its interesting legend of origin: long ago, there lived a robust young man in the Mongolian grassland. This young man was a good folk singer and as long as he sang, one of his white horses would cry with the melody of its master. They two thus became good friends, and in a horse race, this white horse helped the young man win the first prize. The landlord, however, also wanted to have this magical horse, and he finally succeeded in holding the horse as his own by force. The white horse missed his former master so much that one day it escaped from the cruel landlord. Although it got the deadly shot from the landlord, the horse insisted on running and fell to the feet of the young man. In memory of this white horse, the young man made one musical instrument with the remains of the horse: its head bone as the sound box and the tail as the outside bow, and decorated it with carving a horse head. This is the first Horse-Headed Qin.

Tang Minghuang is Also a Musician

Tang Minghuang (618-907 BC), also known as Emperor Xuanzong, was the seventh emperor in the Tang dynasty. He lived in the most prosperous period in the Tang dynasty and was a great ruler.
Tang Minghuang was famous for his love affair with Yang Guifei, his imperial concubine in history. But people seldom learn that he had also a very good ear for music.
Tang Minghuang set up Liyuan (Pear Garden) in the palace to train good performers. He often presented at Liyuan's performances, and corrected their mistakes. Some people say that he was the same as a conductor nowadays.
Tang Minghuang liked dances very much and he composed Nishang Yuyi Wu (The Dance in Leathery Clothes) based on Poluomen Qu.
Tang Minghuang was good at playing many instruments including Pipa (lute), Erhu (a two-stringed instrument), Dizi (bamboo flute). He contributed a lot to the art development during that period.

The Art of Tea

"When a guest comes to my home from afar on a cold night, I light bamboo to boil tea to offer him." Ancient Chinese poem.
China is the home country of tea. Before the Tang Dynasty, Chinese tea was exported by land and sea, first to Japan and Korea, then to India and Central Asia and, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, to the Arabian Peninsula. In the early period of the 17th century, Chinese tea was exported to Europe, where the upper class adopted the fashion of drinking tea. Chinese tealike Chinese silk and chinahas become synonymous worldwide with refined culture. At the heart of the art of teathe study and practice of tea in all its aspectsis the simple gesture of offering a cup of tea to a guest that for Chinese people today is a fundamental social custom, as it has been for centuries. China traces the development of tea as an art form to Lu Yu, known as "the Saint of Tea" in Chinese history, who lived during the Tang Dynasty and who wrote The Book of Tea, the first ever treatise on tea and tea culture. The spirit of tea permeates Chinese culture, and throughout the country there are many kinds of teas, teahouses, tea legends, tea artifacts and tea customs. Better-known places to enjoy a good cup of tea in China include Beijing noted for its variety of teahouses; Fujian and Guangdong provinces and other places in the southeast of China that serve gongfu tea, a formal serving of tea in tiny cups; the West Lake in Hangzhou, also the home of the Tea Connoisseurs Association, noted for its excellent green tea; and provinces in southwest China like Yunnan where the ethnic groups less affected by foreign cultures retain tea ceremonies and customs in original tea-growing areas.

Categories of Tea

Chinese tea may be classified into five categories according to the different methods by which it is processed.

1) Green tea: Green tea is the variety that keeps the original color of the tealeaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.Green Tea is the most natural ofall Chinese teaclasses. It's picked, naturally dried, and then fried briefly (a process called "killing the green") to get rid of its grassy smell. Green Tea has the most medical value and the least caffeine content of all Chinese tea classes. Aroma is medium to high, and flavor is light to medium. About 50% of China's teas are Green tea.

2) Black tea: Black tea, known as "red tea" in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui, Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.Chinese Black tea produces a full-bodies amber when brewed. Black tea undergoes withering (drying), left to ferment for a long while, and then roasted. Black tea leaves become completely oxidized after processing. Black tea has a robust taste with a mild aroma. It contains the highest amount of caffeine in Chinese tea classes.

3) Oolong tea: This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.Typical Oolong Tea leaves are green in the middle and red on the edges as a result of the process to soften tealeaves. Oolong Tea leaves are withered and spread before undergoing a brief fermentation process. Then Oolong Tea is fried, rolled and roasted. Oolong Tea is the chosen tea for the famous Kung Fu Cha brewing process. It's the serious Chinese tea drinker's tea. Aroma ranges from light to medium. Beginners in Oolong Tea should be careful as even though flavor is only mild to medium, the tea could be very strong.

4) Compressed tea: This is the kind of tea that is compressed and hardened into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is, therefore, generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.Most Chinese Compressed Tea uses Black Tea as base tea. Compressed Tea has all the characteristics of Black Tea. It can be stored for years and decades. Aged Compressed Tea has a tamed flavor that Compressed Tea fans would pay huge price for.

5) Scented Tea: This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the tealeaves in the course of processing. The flowers commonly used for this purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known favorite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.It is subdivided into Flower Tea and Scented Tea. Flower Tea is a simple concept that dried flowers are used, without much processing, to make tea. Scented Tea uses green tea, red tea as base and mix with scent of flowers. Chinese Scented Tea has light to medium flavor and medium to strong aroma