Ochadô

Normand tells us more about tea

Tea leaves are harvested from the tea plant (Camellia Sinensis). Depending on the variety, this plant can grow up to more than 20 meters high. In a tea plantation, the plant is kept at 1 meter high to facilitate harvesting. Before you can enjoy your cup of tea, the leaves have to go through a certain process.

The Chinese came up with 6 colors to differentiate each process: Green, Black, Red, Blue, White and Yellow. These colors are not related to the tea itself but to the process used on the leaves. Most occidentals wrongly believe that these colors are linked to the tea plant. In reality, a single tea plant can produce tea of each color!

GREEN Tea: this process means that the leaves are not fermented. In the Chinese tradition, the leaves are roasted for a few minutes to kill enzymes in order to prevent fermentation. In the Japanese tradition, the leaves are steamed at 80°C for a few minutes. The result is the same in both case, but the taste, aroma and even shape of the leaves differs greatly afterwards.

BLACK Tea: (as per the Chinese) this is the tea, occidentals call Pu Erh. In this process, the leaves are roasted and then greatly compressed under a moist fabric. They are left this way for quite a long time, until the leaves develops an aroma of moist earth, mushroom or even humid wood.

Occident versus China

Black tea in Occident	=> Red Tea in China
Red Tea (Rooibos) in Occident	=> do not exist in China, it’s not a tea
Pu erh in Occident	=> Black Tea in China

RED Tea: (as per the Chinese) this is the tea we call black tea! After the harvest, the leaves are fermented by an oxidation process. It is during that time that the leaves will turn darker, almost black in certain cases.

Note: what people commonly call red tea is in fact Rooibos. It is in no way related to the tea plant so it can’t be considered as tea. It comes from the Aspalathus linearis plant, a red bush, which is only grown is South Africa and does not contain any caffeine.

WHITE Tea: this is the simplest process. The leaves and many buds are simply harvested and then sun-dried.

BLUE Tea: blue tea is usually called Oolong or Wu Long. These tea leaves are partially fermented and then the fermentation process is stopped by a light roasting. The Chinese Oolong is normally fermented up to 20% and the Formosa Oolong is fermented up to 70%. So the Chinese Oolong is greener and the Formosa Oolong is blacker.

YELLOW Tea: the process for this tea is very similar to the black tea (Pu Erh) but it’s not post-fermented, less compressed and the whole process is shorter.

The other types of tea:

Smoked tea: this is a roasted tea placed over a fire. The smoke goes through the leaves which they then absorb. The result is a very strong perfume but a very light taste.

Chai: this is a blend of Assam black tea and several spices. This tea is very popular in India.

Blossom tea: This is a flower ornament with tea leaves over them. Once in hot water, the leaves opens up and the flowers are free to bloom.

What about the monkeys? Some teas have the mention “Monkey” in their designation. For example, our “Jasmine Monkey King”. For a long time, Europeans thought these teas used to be harvested by trained monkeys because the tea plants were grown on mountainsides impossible to reach for humans! Actually, it was a clever idea from a Chinese grower to keep the production secret from some nosy Englishman.

With all these varieties, one on them is bound to please your taste buds!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 11:24 and is filed under A little bit of history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.