A neighbor of mine lived in India for a while, and told me that he had once toured a tea packing plant. He said that the best tea was sold to places like Australia, Russia, and the Middle East which have long had access to the very best quality tea. The middle quality tea was either kept for local consumption, or sold to Western Europe. The bottom quality tea was sent to the United States. This means that Americans need to do some looking if they want to find good tea. Tea can be green, Oolong, or black, depending upon the degree of fermentation. A green tea is unfermented and will have the least caffeine , Oolong tea is partially fermented, and black tea is fully fermented. The terms Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling, and Yunnan all refer to the region in which the tea is grown. Each has its own characteristics. There are also special words describing which leaf of the tea shoot was picked and how the leaves were processed . Earl Grey tea is actually a blended black tea with a special flavoring added, and note that the term "Orange Pekoe" refers to the size of the processed tea leaves, not the variety of tea. A box labeled Orange Pekoe is typically a box of unspecified tea, probably packed into teabags.
Tea is not really tea unless it is made from the leaves of a specific plant, Camellia sinensis . There are several products called "herbal tea" that are not tea at all, but fall instead into the category of "herbal infusion." |