Tea Varieties

Oxidation is the reaction of the enzymes contained in tea leaves when they are broken, bruised or crushed. In its most basic form, processing is the taking of the raw green leaves and deciding whether or not, and how much oxidation (or fermentation) should take place before drying them out. It is the processing techniques that produce the four simple tea categories are considered the art of tea making.

Shades in flavor derive from the region of cultivation and the method of processing the tea leaves. If you do like tea drinking, but simply never had the opportunity to learn more about it beyond the fact that you enjoy it, you should know that there are thousands of kinds of tea offered on today's market. Tea is made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush in hot water for a few minutes, a great variety of tea tastes, aromas and colors can excite even the more skeptical drinker. Interestingly enough the 3,200,000 tones of tea produced worldwide come from only one plant species, named "camellia sinensis." But how a plant becomes a beverage?

The second most consumed beverage behind water is tea.
The first category is that of black tea. Black tea is nothing more than the leaves of the camellia sinensis after being exposed to 8-24 hours of open air. After the leaves are picked up they are spread out to let the water they contain evaporate. You have probably witnessed it happening to a flower that is left without being watered. The foliage curls up and begins to dry. After this part of the process, the tea leaves are balled into rolls that encourage oxidization. When fully oxidized, the leaves turn into a rich black color. Tea producers then put the tea leaves into the final drying period before sorting and packaging them.
Oolong tea is another tea category and is considered to be the most difficult of the four types of teas to process. The best way to describe oolong tea is that it is somewhere in between green and black tea. This is because the leaves are only partially oxidized during the processing. As with black tea, the leaves are spread out to dry for 8-24 hours, but after that, they are tossed about in a basket in order to create a bruising and partial exposure to the air. The final step involves steaming the leaves, which neutralizes the enzymes in the tea and prevents further oxidization.
Though the tea leaves are sometimes laid out to dry for a few hours, then, in order to neutralize the enzymes and prevent further oxidation, the leaves are rolled up, still quite green in color. The whole process of creating green tea revolves around preventing oxidization from taking place in the leaves. This type of tea is also lower in caffeine and has higher antioxidant properties. Green teas, like white teas, are closer to tasting like fresh leaves of grass that the other two tea categories.
Finally, white tea has recently become a popular item in the west as it is the least processed tea and thus tastes the most like fresh leaves or grass. White tea is made of the little buds of the tea plant. Again like green tea, white tea is steamed or pan fried to prevent any kind of oxidization, and great care is taken to avoid bruising or crushing the tea. The dried buds have a silver-like appearance because the tiny white hairs of new growth are still present.
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Kombucha Ancient Healing Tea From Fermented Mushroom

The use of microorganisms for medicinal use is certainly not new.
Mainstream antibiotics are derived from microorganisms (such as penicillin) and pathogens (such as polio or smallpox) play a role in vaccine development. And we use the friendly organisms in acidophilus (found in yogurt, kefir and tablets) to restore the beneficial flora in our intestines.
Kombucha, or Mandarin Mushroom Tea is a specially fermented tea that you can make at home with a simple recipe. You need a "baby" Kombucha to begin and you can either buy the baby, or get one free from an avid Kombucha tea drinker. Each mushroom comes with step-by-step instructions, or you can get written instructions from the person who is giving you a baby Kombucha mushroom.
It is a flat, dark, pancake looking mushroom and looks very odd in the bowel as it ferments. Kombucha tea, when fermented properly, offers a host of beneficial microorganisms. Although the Kombucha mushroom has been around, and used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, it was considered an exotic Chinese Mushroom until this century.
Before the days of modern food preparation and packaging for commercial resale, fermenting food was how people preserved foods. Lactic acid fermentation was the most popular way to preserve food. Vegetables, cheese, cured meats, and other whole, unrefined foods were kept down in the basement, especially in the winter. These old basements were not completely sealed from air, light or moisture. Preserving food via fermentation today would be considered primitive by today's standards. When we lost our old fashioned ability to maintain the active constituents of raw food by lactic acid fermentation, our rate of cancer and other diseases skyrocketed.
Research into lactic acid's ability to kill cancer cells in vitro, and its ability to work with beneficial flora in the intestines has emerged as a new science once again. Our own bodies manufacture some lactic acid, as a weapon against disease, but there was a time when our natural diet supplied lactic acid too.
What are some of the health benefits of consuming foods rich in lactic acid?
From acetylcholine, we develop choline, which is an important brain chemical and is involved in healthy blood pressure. · The lactic acid fermentation process promotes the development of acetylcholine which promotes healthy neurotransmitters, the cells that relay nervous signals across the body.
· Lactic acid fermented foods are rich in enzymes and Vitamins A, C, and B. Enzyme deficiency is the root cause of many diseases.
· Lactic Acid makes the bowel environment very unfriendly toward viruses and bacteria and aids in the healthy expulsion of such pathogens.
It usually takes about 4-7 days for a Kombucha mushroom to produce the ordinary looking tea. I find the tea very refreshing…a cross between bubbly champagne and apple cider. Most people find it very tasty too. It may not be a cure all, but it is a healthy drink for most people.
It probably seems very odd that Kombucha tea is made with white sugar instead of raw, whole sugar. But the mushroom consumes and completely alters the sugar in a few days during the fermentation process. And the mushroom does not seem to produce any babies if you use unrefined sugar. I have not found a naturopath to advise against diabetics using the tea, but if you are diabetic maybe you should check with your local naturopath or licensed clinical nutritionist who is schooled in Chinese mushroom herbology. I have seen Kombucha successfully used in candida yeast support therapy and it does not seem to harm anyone who has a lactose allergy. Many Chinese Medicine doctors are familiar with Mandarin Kombucha tea, but most westerners are not.
Kombucha tea drinkers swear by it. It appears to help a wide range of health problems. And we already know that all teas are very healthy drinks.
Bubbly anyone? So why not give Kombucha a try?