What is green tea?
Green tea is processed only a small amount after it is plucked. The finest teas use only the top two leaves and the unopened leaf bud of the plant. After the leaves wither and become soft, they are steamed or heated in woks to stop any fermentation. Then, the leaves are rolled and dried.

What makes it so special?
Green tea is a light, refreshing beverage that is wonderful for quenching your thirst. But more than that, green tea also provides vitamins C and E, calcium, and iron, as well as beta carotene. It is also quite low in caffeine, which makes it ideal for afternoon or evening tea.

What kinds of green tea are there?
Bancha tea is a popular everyday tea in Japan.

Genmaicha is basically bancha combined with toasted brown rice. Some of the rice pops similarly to popcorn during the toasting process, and this adds a nutty flavour to the tea.

Gunpowder tea is made by tightly rolling the leaves into “pearls” or little balls. This tea originated in the ZheJiang province of China, and was ideal for carrying on long journeys from China to Europe. The flavor of this tea is somewhat dry, and very refreshing.

There are many other types of green teas available, and each one is unique!

What does green tea taste like?
Green tea tends to have a subtle flavor that is slightly woodsy or toasted. However, different green teas will each have a unique flavour, depending on the growing region’s climate and soil, the weather, time of harvesting, and processing methods.

So, how do I brew it properly?
In order to avoid bitter taste, green tea has a relatively short brewing time. Use one teaspoon of loose leaves for each cup you plan to brew. Heat water to boiling, then let it cool for a few minutes (until it measures 82-88 degrees Celsius) before pouring over your tea in the teapot. Brew for 1-2 minutes, then pour and enjoy.

Lower quality green teas may require longer steeping, but high-quality teas only steep for a short time, and the leaves may be reused for a second or third cup.
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George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) wrote an essay, A Nice Cup of Tea, in 1946. Therein, he gives his 11 guidelines for the perfect cup of tea. Thanks so much to John Blarmey, who passed on this link!

You should certainly read it in its entirety, as it is quite eloquently written, but if you are pressed for time, here is a summary of his “golden rules.”

1. Use only Indian or Ceylonese tea.
2. Tea should only be made in small quantities, never en masse, always in a teapot of earthenware or china.
3. The teapot should be pre-warmed.
4. Tea should be strong. (“one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones.”)
5. Only loose tea should be used, and not confined to any bags, strainers, or other mechanisms. Straight into the pot!
6. Take the teapot to the kettle, not vice versa. The water should be at a rolling boil at the point of impact.
7. After brewing, always stir or shake the pot.
8. Drink out of a cyllindrical cup. It holds more and keeps tea hot longer.
9. Use milk that is not too creamy.
10. Pour tea into your cup first, followed by milk. Never the other way around.
11. Never add sugar. Ever.

“On Sundays, Orwell liked very rare roast beef, and Yorkshire pudding dripping with gravy, and good Yarmouth kippers at high tea. (p.501) . . . He liked his tea, as well as his tobacco, strong, sometimes putting twelve spoonfuls into a huge brown teapot requiring both hands to lift.”

-George Orwell: A Life, Bernard Crick, p.502

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What is white tea?

White tea is the least processed variety of tea. Most varieties of white tea are produced simply by withering and drying the immature leaves.

What makes it so special?

Leaves used in making white tea must be plucked shortly before the buds fully open. If the buds are plucked before they begin to open at all, they are used in making silver needle, the finest white tea there is. If the buds have begun to slightly open, with two small leaves, they are used in making white peony tea, which is also a high quality tea. Small, immature leaves may also be used to make other kinds of white tea, but you’ll find the two mentioned here are the most aromatic and delicate.

White tea is also high in nutrients due to its low amounts of processing. It is also low in caffeine.
What kinds of white tea are there?

White Peony Tea - Pai Mu Tan, also known as Bai Mu Dan or White Peony tea, comes from Fujian province in China.

Silver needle -Yun Shan Yin Zhen tea (or Jun Shan Yin Zhen) is one of China’s finest teas, indeed one of China’s 10 Famous Teas. The name means Silver Needle of the Gentle Mountain.

What does white tea taste like?

White tea has a delicate, almost floral flavour. It is quite aromatic, and must be properly brewed to retain its light taste.

So, how do I brew it properly?

Use cool, filtered water to start. Bring the water to a boil, then let it cool for several minutes before adding your white tea to steep. Temperatures that are too hot will cook the leaves rather than steeping them, leaving you with a bitter cuppa. The proper temperature will be between 50 and 85 degrees Celsius. Different sources say to steep the tea for vastly different lengths of time. Some say to only steep Silver Needle for 45 seconds, while others swear that “the longer the better.” Truly, steeping time is a matter of personal taste, but the water quality and temperature are the most important factors in making sure you enjoy your tea.

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You love to steep and sip your tea, whether in the morning, afternoon, or evening, but have you ever wondered what plant or plants compose your delightful treat? Or have you wondered how the different varieties differ? Look no further. Answers are here!

What plant does tea come from?

Camellia sinensis is the “tea plant” from which all true teas originate. “Herbal teas” are really infusions of herbs, and not true tea, so for now we’ll ignore those. Sinensis means “Chinese,” and camellia is a genus of flowering plants that grow wild in China and Japan. The young leaves are used to create the loose teas with which we are familiar.

Does that mean all tea is the same?

Certainly not! While all tea comes from the same species of plant, there are a few varieties of the Camellia sinensis.

• C. sinensis var. assamica is found in the Assam region of India. This large-leafed tree can grow to be 6 - 20 metres tall, but in tea gardens it is kept to around 1 metre in height. Tea produced from this plant is strong, aromatic, and sometimes earthy in flavour.
• C. sinensis var. sinensis (the Chinese variety) is found in south-east China. This is the “original tea plant” and has been used for steeping for over 3000 years. This plant is a multi-stemmed bush produces small leaves that result in a slightly flowery infusion.
• C. sinensis var. parvifolia is a Cambodian variety which grows as a small multi-stemmed tree with middle-sized leaves. It is referred to as an Assam-Chinese hybrid.

Besides the botanical differences within the species, teas also vary depending on the methods of drying, oxidizing, and heating that are used to prepare them. There are four main methods for creating teas, with many small variations within each method.

• White teas do not undergo any oxidization (sometimes referred to as fermentation). The leaves are simply withered and dried.
• Green teas are withered and then allowed to oxidize for a very short time before they are heat-treated and dried.
• Oolong teas are withered and bruised, allowed to oxidize for a short time, then heat-treated and dried.
  
• Black teas are withered, cut or rolled, then allowed to fully oxidize before being heat-treated and dried.

Generally, if a tea is more oxidized, it contains more caffeine and a stronger flavour. Less oxidized teas are more delicate and light in flavour.

More about the specific varieties will be posted later. For now, I hope you’ve gained a little insight into the delicious beverage you so enjoy!

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A companion post to the China Now announcement, which will be hosting a wonderful touring exhibition and range of activities hosted by the Chinese National Tea Museum. This museum really is an extraordinary resource, for those fortunate enough to be able to visit, and is a perfectly fitting monument for a culture to whom tea is even more fundamental than our own. Located in the Zhijiang province of Hangzhou, it first opened in 1991, and has seen rising attendance from tea fans from all over the world. Combining museum, botanical garden, and tea plantation, it really is a stunning sight to behold.

The museum is also a lively centre for academic research on tea – if ever you wanted to attend the University of Tea, this is it (they’ve yet to begin dispensing degrees but it’s only a matter of time - I feel I’ve long since earned my B.A. Hons in Tea Drinking, and it’s about time someone gave me a certificate to prove it) .

Especially interesting are the sections on the Tea Apparatus. Tea sets in China are traditionally as important as the tea itself, and there is an excess of aesthetic over function (in other words, Chinese tea sets are extremely beautiful, beyond what is required of them, and often resemble works of art in themselves).

The classic design of cup and saucer of course was invented in China, thousands of years ago, during the Tang dynasty. Teapot making takes off, big time, during the Ming dynasty, and pot-making becomes a distinguished and noble craft, with increasing attention paid to artistic design. The teapot becomes a beautiful thing, and both tin and clay pots become expensive items.

So do leave a window for the Chinese Tea Museum events at China Now. A rare chance to see ancient tea sets, as well as an opportunity to get savvy with Chines tea customs and history. Which will come in handy in a few years when the Chinese become Masters of the Universe.

You may recall the leading news item on 21 May 2007, when the Cutty Sark

at Greenwich was severely damaged after going up in flames, and the extraordinary sight of a London skyline, usually dominated by Canary Wharf, obscured by a nineteenth century tea clipper on fire.

The Cutty Sark, built in 1869, is the only surviving tea clipper. A ‘clipper’,which refers to the speed by which it passes through waves, is the name for a typical multiple-masted sailing ship used for trade routes between the UK and the East Indies. The legendary Cutty Sark carried tea from China to London, in an era of fiercely competitive races which rewarded the first ship to arrive back with tea from China with huge profits.

Her fame across the world survived the replacement of clippers with more efficient steamships, and survives even to this day – the ship attracts millions of visitors a year and is one of London’s key tourist attractions - and is testament to the importance of tea in nineteenth century commerce and culture.

The ship had been closed for conservation when it caught fire. Mercifully, the Cutty Sark Trust assured the public that more than half the ship had been removed elsewhere for preservation. It is estimated, however, that the cost of restoring the ship will reach somewhere in the region of £35 million.

The immense conservation project is well underway, and can be monitored on the official Cutty Sark website . There is also a fund set up should you wish to make a donation towards resurrecting this once indestructible symbol of the tea trade.

The last post got me thinking about older advertising about tea, and I found these examples via History World.

• The original PG Tips, from 1951 and 1952.
  
• Harden’s tea, from 1950.
  
• Co-op tea, from 1936 and 1937.
  
• Proof that tea has always been subject to unproven claims about its health benefits.
  
• And here apparently is the tea that Members of Parliament drank under Queen Victoria.
  

Spotted this recently in the trade news. Tea trading between India and Russia seems to be taking off again in a big way. During the, ahem, glory years of the Soviet Union, 50 per cent of tea into Russia came from India; but since the end of communism, Indian exports of tea to Russia fell dramatically. But the historic commerce between the two countries is being sparked up once more, and the Indian government is aiming for a $10 billion trade turnover target with Russia by 2010.

Reading about this, I can’t help but hark back to the romance of nineteenth century tea trading, and how, even further back, the invention of new teas arose from this long distance trading. The trade in tea between China and Russia, for instance, required the smoking of teas such as lapsang souchong and Russian tea. The latter tea originates in China, and has a similarly distinct smoky flavour to lapsang souchong; it takes its name from the method of trading between the two countries, which involved the use of camel or mule caravans for transport. These journeys of course take their time, so the tea would be smoked, which involved a special process to preserve the leaves over a period of several months. Smoking the tea also created, from this necessity, a whole new taste: that robust, woody, oakey flavour, which gives that extra kick.

Actually, I can think of another China-Russia cross-breed, with its own kick, from which the Indians, in their rekindled relations with Russia, could take inspiration:

Tea has made its way over the years into the very fabric of our language. Some of our most treasured phrases, even cliches, make reference to, or originate, in the world of tea.

Take for instance: ‘not my cup of tea’. We all know what that means: it’s an expression of dislike, that something is not suited to one’s taste. First recorded use in 1932.

Then there’s the phrase: ‘not for all the tea in China’, which originated in Australian slang in the 1890s. It means, of course, ‘not for any price’.

More interesting in terms of etymology (or the origins of words): ‘dressed to a tee’. We’ve all heard that one. It means to be dressed smartly, even formally. The OED does not give us a definitive root, except to say that is a variation of ‘dressed to go to a tea’: see the Japanese tea ceremony entry for a cultural alternative to being dressed to a tee/tea.

A hilarious Scottish phrase, meaning a mean-minded refusal of hospitality: ‘you’ll have had your tea then’. Surely top of the list of faux pas for the host at at the aforementioned tea ceremony!

‘Storm in a teacup’. Aka ‘tempest in a teapot’. Making a big fuss over something trivial. Dated 1857, but there’s an earlier version of ’storm in a cream bowl’ which dates to around 1678. And an instance of Cicero, the Roman philosopher, around 400 BC, making the remark: ’stirred up waves in a wine ladle.’ Someone made that nice transition from wine to tea and it stuck.

Can you think of any more?

…one of life’s great existential dilemmas, as Shakespeare himself observed. His most famous character, Hamlet, is almost driven mad by the question: do I use a teapot, or do I go directly for the cup. By the time he makes his mind up, and opts for his special skull-shaped teapot, the play is nearly over, and it’s too late. The water’s gone cold.

But seriously, folks. Teapots. People have been using them for centuries. In fact, since China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Here is a picture of one of the very oldest surviving teapots from this period, dated 1533.

The first teapots, like the above, were made from zischa, which is a kind of clay, and come from the YiXing region of China. YiXing teapots are still regarded, to this day, as a benchmark of quality. YiXing teapots, baked at 2,000F+ high heat, are made of very fine clay. They contain tiny pores, which absorb the flavour of the tea, and can actually enhance the flavour as it brews. They also maintain heat longer than other kinds of teapot (again, improving quality and flavour); and they look great.

Here are some modern examples of YiXing teapots

I confess I’m a borderline teapot obsessive: stay tuned for more tidbits on the story of the teapot.