Introduction to Tea

by auraTeas

茶, Cha, Tea, The, Chai. Whatever the name, it is the second popular drink in the world, just next to water. We spent thousands years on the mysterious leaf, and until recent decades we started to explore the enormous power of tea. The scientists already proved the wisdom of our ancients: tea is not only a drink, it is a healthy drink.

The Plant

Literally there are hundreds styles of teas in the world. White tea, green tea, oolong, black tea, all come from the plant Camellia sinensis, processed in different oxidization and methods.

Camellia sinensis is a Far East native evergreen favors tropical to subtropical climate, moisture, and high altitude. The name "sinensis" means Chines in Latin. Some order names for tea plant include "Thea Bohea", "Thea sinensis" and "Thea viridis".

Basically there are 2 major varieties supplying the tea products, a smaller one, and a larger one.

The smaller variety is "Chinese variety"(sometimes called C. sinensis var. sinensis). It has small leaves and multiple stems. Most of Chinese and Taiwanese fine teas are derive from Chinese variety. It can grow up to 3 meters, but are maintained as short bushes for easier harvest. The flowers are yellow-white, 2.5–4 cm in diameter, with 7 to 8 petals. Some wild tea trees found in Yunnan (China) can grow as 15 feet high, and can survive for centuries. Recent found oldest tea trees in Yunnan (China) are probably 1700 years old.

The larger variety is "Assamese Vairety" (sometimes called C. sinensis var. assamica or C. assamica), native to north-east India, Myanmar, Vietnam, and South China. It is a single stemmed tree with large leaves. It reaches a hight of 6-30 meters, but is kept trimmed short for easy harvesting. Its life span is shorter then the Chinese variety. All Assam teas and most Ceylon teas are from this plant. The Assam plant produces malty, earthy drinks, unlike the generally flowery yield of the China plant. It is commonly used for producing black tea.

There's a third variety called "Cambodian Variety" (sometimes called C. sinensis var. parvifolia). Its leaves size between the Assam and Chinese varieties.

The seeds of Camellia sinensis and Camellia oleifera can be pressed to yield tea oil. Tea oil is for cooking purpose, adds sweetish flavor in cooking. The leftovers of the pressed seeds are made into hair cleaner, body cleaner, and even detergents for dishes. This tea detergent is extremely smooth to skin and hair.

This "tea oil" is different to "tea tree oil" (or ti tree oil), which is an essential oil made of different plant and used in aromatherapy.

Tea Styles

Tea leaf is dried, oxidized or fermented, baked, fried or roasted in different levels, thus makes black tea, green tea, white tea, etc. There are several systems to distinguish tea sytles:

1. International markets has made 3 different tea types according to its fermentation or oxidization level:

*Green Tea (non-oxidized)

*Oolong Tea (partial oxidized)

*Black Tea (fully oxidized).

2. Traditional Chinese system distinguishes tea styles from detailed oxidization level (minimum oxidized to fully oxidized):

*Green Tea

*White Tea

*Oolong Tea

*Yellow Tea

*Red Tea (known as Black Tea, fully oxidized)

*Black Tea (known as post fermented tea, such as Pu-er).

3. Distinguish tea from its wilting level, we'll have "non-wilted" and "wilted" styles.

*Non-wilted: Green Tea

*Wilted: all other styles of teas including white, oolong, yellow, red (black tea), black (post-fermented tea).

4. All tea contains caffeine because it is a natural element contains in tea leaves. The caffeine level is actually increased by the oxidization levels. Decaf teas are made through some chemical process. All tea has less caffeine than coke dark chocolate, and coffee.

5. Herb tea is not made of tea leaf but herbs, so is is actually herb infusion.

Tea countries

Current science and historical records indicated that China is the origin of tea. Tea has been used as an herb medicine in Chinese history for thousand years. Tea art, Tea Ceremony (Cha Dao) is deeply related to Chinese culture. China remains as a major tea exporting country now.

Taiwan is also one important tea country. There are some wild tea trees found in Taiwan, but most mother plants were immigrated from China, some from India (Assam black tea). Benefits from the weather and geographic environments, Taiwan has been producing top quality teas for centuries and successfully cultivated some new varieties. Taiwanese tea is also known as "Formosa Tea", the famous "Formosa Baihao Oolong" is considered as one of the best oolong tea in the world.

India is the main country grown Assamese variety tea tree, and one major country supplying black tea industry. Along with India, Sri Lanka also produces gourmet black tea.

Japan is famous for green tea. It also inherits Tea Ceremony (Cha Dao) from China. About 1200 years ago, Buddhist monks Saicho and Kukai brought tea trees from China to Japan, and started cultivating tea locally. As a large tea consuming country with comparing smaller cultivation, Japanese native green tea is high quality and also pricey in international markets.

We'll talk more about tea styles later in our posts about tea styles.

-article by auraTeas

*the picture above is the tea farm of our tea supplier in Nantao, Taiwan. The tea supplier owns the copy right of the photo, please do not use this photo, thank you.

*references:

Camellia sinensis (Wikipedia)

Caffeine and Tea (Tea Association of Canada)

tea essence of leaf (by Sara Slavin and Karl Petzke, Chronicle Books, 1998)

the new tea book (by Sara Perry, Chronicle Books, 2001)