All Teas Come from Different Plants? Really?
So just in case that you - just like me before - have been living in a world where there is just green tea and black tea (tea bags, of course...) and they both come from different species of plants, give me a chance to put it right today. Today I will explain you everything basic about the different kinds of tea which you can find out there.
One Plant Species - Two Varietals
Before we start, firstly let us clarify something: All different kinds of teas, no matter whether they are green tea or black tea, are from the same plant species. All your teas - except for fruit tea, which is not a tea in the narrower sense - come from the Camellia Sinesis or simply: tea plant. Allthough the tea plant has four varietals in total, there are just two varietals which are mainly used for tea production: the small-leaf Sinesis varietal (Camellia Sinesis var. Sinesis), which are bushes that can grow up to 3 m and the big-leaf Assamica varietal (Camellia Sinesis var. Assamica), which can grow up to 12 m high trees. While their Latin names refer to the origin of the varietal (China & Assam), their Chinese name is much more descriptive: the Sinensis varietal is refered to as 小葉種 (small-leaf varietal) while the Assamica varietal is refered to as 大葉種 (big-leaf varietal). Having a look at the picture bellow explains why. Quite obvious, right?
Most of teas come from one of these two varietals. Yet these two varietals have thousands of cultivars which are the result of hundreds of years of cultivation by tea farmers. While most farmers plant their own cultivar, it is mainly the location and the difference in processing that accounts for the different appearance and different tastes of your teas. If you want to know more about the tea plant, stay tuned for our next article in this blog.
Here you see the obviously smaller Sinensis varietal vs. the hand-big Assamica varietal.
The 6 Types of Tea
In total there are six different types of tea:
White Tea
Yellow Tea
Green Tea
Oolong Tea
Black Tea
Post-Fermented Tea
We will come up with more blog posts featuring the different kinds of teas that are out there.
These six different types however, are all produced using either the Sinesis or the Assamica varietal. However, depending on the region either varietals can be used for the production of any of these 6 tea types. A big number of black teas is made of the Assamica varietal and most of green teas are made of the Sinensis varietal. Nonetheless, especially in eastern China black tea is also made of the Sinesis varietal, while in southern China's Yunnan province, the majority of teas are made of the Assamica varietal.
What's the main difference?
While these 6 kinds are all different in their way of processing, their main difference lays in the different degree of fermentation of the tea leaf.
The degree of fermentation is what makes the leafs change their color from green to black. A non-fermented or slightly fermented leaf will be light-green, while a nearly totally fermented or post-fermented tea leaf will be dark red or black.
Fermentation is caused by rolling the tea leafs, which leads to a slight damage of the leafs' cell walls thus leading to a micro biological process releasing the enzyme which reacts with the air and alters the taste, structure and color of the tea. However, for this very first post we will not take it too far and get to an and for today.
Please let us know your questions after reading this post. Anything in special you would like to know about tea in general or WasaTea? Leave us a comment or send us a mail @ wasatea@126.com. We will be happy to hear from you!
Cheers,
