When I was a newbie to tea drinking, I assumed that black, green, and oolong teas, etc., all came from different kinds of tea plants. It turned out I was wrong about that and many other assumptions I made early on.One of my goals for The Tea Detective is to share everything I’ve learned about tea over the years so you can come to understand and enjoy, as I have, all the truly remarkable traits and qualities of tea. |
White-Green-Black-Yellow- Oolong or Pu-erh It’s All in the Processing |
Once the plucking is finished, the fresh leaf is quickly taken to a factory or processing faci- lity, which can be anything from a simple pavilion set in the midst of the tea garden, locat- ed in a village at the base of the mountain, or a pristine regional factory built specifically for processing large amounts of tea.No matter the type of tea being made, all tea processing has eight common ele- ments, which are:
But it’s mainly the percentage or type of drying or oxidation the leaves receive that deter- Be sure to visit the other Tea Detective pages to get an in-depth look at each type of tea, |
There are six main types of tea, which are: black tea, green tea, white, oolong, yellow, and pu-erh. All come from the same plant family-Camellia sinensis. So the plucked tea brought to the processing facilities or factory starts out basically the same, from the same kind of tea leaves.There are, of course, other variables such as the the country and climate where the tea is grown, type of pluck, is it an early or late spring flush, and more, that all factor into the production. |
of the tea we drink today comes from well-tended bushes pruned until they are three to five feet tall and wide.The exception to this is Fenghuang Dan Cong oolong (or Fonghuang Tan-Chung) that is pruned to grow and develop into a tree with a single trunk and individual branches. Ladders must be employed to pluck this tea. |
Harvesting the Tea |
Most quality loose leaf tea purchased today is plucked by hand, mainly by women. Carrying baskets on their backs or heads, the women make their way through waist high bushes, plucking the tea leaves from the stem in swift, practiced motions.Each worker picks about 30,000 shoots a day, about forty pounds, equalling ten pounds of processed tea leaves. In Japan many tea companies and estates employ mechanized tea China, where they insist the leaf tea have |
No Tea From the Tree |
The Camellia sinensis is actually a type of evergreen that if left alone would grow to heights ranging from 35 to 60 feet. Most all |