Feb 10, 2009

Tea Calendar - Teas to look foward to all year around

Just for fun. I sorted out some notes and summarized tea time around the 24 annual solar terms. It's only possible to include a small number of teas, mostly those I am interested in :D The summary table definitely needs to be polished and more information needs to be added in.

Chinese calendar is a lunar calendar with indications of sun motion. There are 24 days in Chinese calendar marking the 24 solar terms throughout a year. Their dates stay *almost* the same year by year on western calendar, which is a solar calendar. The 24 solar term marks directed a lot of agricultural activities in traditional society of China, including tea cultivation.

A lot of good information about the 24 solar terms can be found at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term

Most solar term names in following table are consistent with above wiki information, with a few different.

Some additional notes:

* Date may vary by 1 day.

** There are variations due to climate changes and early growth new varietals.

*** The notes focus on climatic changes and agricultural events (with large variations existing across the country).

**** Start of Spring, Start of Summer, Start of Autumn, and Start of Winter are 4 of the Solar Term days that mark the start of seasons. However, when each of them comes, most part of the country is still in the previous season.

Please click to see the full image.




1 comment:

TeaMan said...

Visit Tea Plantation Agronomy for tea growing tips and discussion.