Tea

About the Author

I've studied the art of tea on and off since 1999 and regularly (weekly class) for two years in Taiwan.  In the meantime I have also visited tea plantations and processing plants of both black and oolong tea.   Much of the best information on tea is in Chinese which I am able to read with difficulty.   Here I bring to you some of my knowledge and experience on the subject in English.

The author in Japan

Tea: The Leaf

You start with tea leaves.  If it's not tea then it's not tea.  Sorry but herbs are not tea leaves, so herbal tea isn't really tea, it's a beverage brewed in a tea like fashion.  Back to the leaves. The variety of the tea leaf grown corresponds to it's intended purpose.  In other words, farmers prefer to use specific varieties of tea leaf for black green, oolong or puh-er tea.  This is were there is often confusion even among the most seasoned tea drinkers. The tea variety itself does not determine what kind of tea (black/green/ oolong) it is but the processing of that tea leaf.  Unfortunately, to add to the confusion many tea leaf varieties use names like oolong.  To make matters worse, many tea varieties are named for geographic regions even though the tea variety can be grown outside of that region.   For example,  there is a tea farm (grower and processor) in Taiwan that produces Assam (a region in India, but also a tea variety) tea.

Before I go any further and get into the science of tea processing and the art of tea brewing, I want to share my passion of tea with the reader.    Show tea some love, there's no reason to learn about tea if you don't love it.  Tea is quirky and finicky and requires patience to be enjoyed.   The same 600 gram batch of tea changes flavor depending on the kettle used to boil the water (clay or tin) the pot used to brew (size and clay type) the temparture of the water, the amount of water added to the pot, the length of time to brew, and even the amount of time given between each brew. Who would have thought the flavor in that pot of tea would have so many variables, all depending on the tea maker's skills and choice of paraphernalia. Tea brewing is about trial and error, discovery, and most of all just chilling out with that perfectly blissful sip of golden liquid.

Tea Processing

This section to cover the processing with photos. Will cover the main types of tea: black, green, oolong and puh-er.

Oolong Processing:

Tea Brewing

This section to cover tea ceremony with photos. Many methods folks.

Iced Teas

This section to cover tea in popular culture such as "pearl milk tea"  with photos of course.

Tea History

If anyone is interested in doing this section with tight citations, feel free to collaborate. There is already a lot of info on the Internet about the history, may just add links.

Note: I am writing/ editing this in the browser on the fly, so there may be a number of sentence and word errors.