You don’t have to be a fortune teller to be mesmerized by tea. This simple drink is the world’s most popular beverage, second only to water.  From the opium wars in China to the Boston Tea party, countries have been colonized, conquered and lost all for the sake of this mystical far eastern beverage.

 

It’s hard to believe that tea was drunk in America, before England (its national beverage), in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now known as New York. It’s taken nearly 350 years for America to revisit this beverage and embrace tea as a whole leaf and not just dust in a tea bag. America has gone from loving the worst of teas to the very best skipping all the mediocrity in the middle. Even with this great renaissance the new tea drinker is still naive as to what tea actually is and the skill and labor involved in its manufacture.

 

To start, it is important to understand that herbal infusions are not tea; they are simply infusions of herbs, flowers, dried leaves, spices, roots and seeds. The deception is simply due to the similar process of brewing.

 

All “TEA” comes from the leaves of the camellia sinensis plant, an evergreen shrub. There are two major plant varieties, the China plant and the Assamica plant indigenous to India. The leaves from these plants produce five major categories of tea: white, green, pouchong, oolong and black. Today, we explore black and white teas.

 

Black tea is the most familiar category to everyone and the basis for most traditional breakfast teas and the base for iced tea. The better quality black teas are made with just the new growth leaves. Only the two leaves and bud are plucked from the tips of the branches. The leaves are withered, and then rolled. The rolling liberates the enzymes and the juices in the leaf, which in-turn oxidize turning the leaf brown. This oxidation produces the deep rich flavor and amber colored liquor.

 

On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the delicate sweet white tea. This tea consists exclusively of unopened leaf buds covered with down. White teas were exclusive to the Chinese Fujian province and were once only harvested for the Emperor. As the young spring buds would appear, Buddhist monks would be summoned to discuss the astrological well being of the moment. If all was in balance, harvesting would take place. At dawn a crew of virgins with white silk gloves and silver scissors would cut the buds into a silver bowl. The tea would be sun dried in the bowl and presented to the Emperor. The tea was considered the purest of the pure, fit only for royalty. Today these same cultivars of the China plant are grown in other regions of the world and have the same delicate white spring shoots. The lack of processing preserves the naturally occurring concentration of antioxidants, up to three times that of green tea and is virtually caffeine free.

 

So this is a starting point to give you the tools to better understand this complex drink. Hopefully when you are faced with a tea choice it won’t be as intimidating. After all it’s just a simple leaf that has impacted the world and today is still an infant 5000 years later.