"TJV" > wrote in message

> In Asia teas are classified according to the colour of the infusion
> rather than leaf colour.

In Australasia maybe.

> Hence black tea is red tea and pu-er tea is
> black tea (if your pu-er is red then you probably aren't brewing it as
> strong as in Asia - try brewing it gongfu style).

So Japanese hojicha would be sold as brown tea ? And you'd obtain a milky
infusion with white tea ?
There are sometimes namings of tea that refer to the color of the liquor
(I've seen red wulong/golden wulong...), but that's not a classification.

>But that
> goes against the other labelling system. Can anyone shed some light?

The colors I was talking about definitely refered to the process (and that
doesn't match systematically leaf color)and not the liquor. Now, in Japan,
and I've seen it in China too, they are often replaced or followed by
indication like that :
red tea (oxidized)
wulong tea (semi-oxidized)
black tea (post-fermented)

Kuri