What are the Essentials of High Quality Loose Leaf Tea?

Critical elements in the process include: Demand for high quality loose leaf tea is experiencing strong growth and for those interested in high quality loose leaf tea is experiencing strong growth and for those interested in high quality loose tea, more information will aid in decision making.
Source of the Tea
Manufacturing Processes
Purchasing, Quality Control and Customer Service
Source of the Tea
All tea comes from the plant Camellia Sinensis but there is where the similarity between high quality loose leaf tea and other, lesser quality ends. From the time the tea leaves are plucked until the time the consumer tastes the brew, a number of critical events affect the tea experience.
High quality loose leaf teas are carefully selected as only the finest of these rare orthodox teas, which are processed slowly and hand-crafted with extreme care.
Tea, like wine, is harvested and processed into the final product on the grounds of the garden or estate. The taste and quality of any tea varietal depends upon the specific growing conditions. Factors such as altitude, climate, soil, weather, and plucking season all affect the final product.
To produce just one pound of quality loose leaf tea, it takes approximately 3,000 hand plucked leaves. Only the most tender leaves and young buds are selected. After the leaves are picked, the precise art of tea making begins.
Manufacturing Processes
Tea is manufactured by two different processes.
Most ordinary tea is machine processed by the C.T.C. method (crush, tear, curl). The resulting small, broken pieces are used in tea bags or iced tea concentrates. Less than 2% of the world's tea is of superior quality, hand-processed in the classic, time-honored method known as orthodox manufacture.
And, of course, only the finest. Connoisseurs will find no soggy paper tea bags and no trendy herbals from high quality loose tea suppliers; only real tea from the Camellia Sinensis bush. The highest quality loose teas are hand-plucked and meticulously crafted to enhance leaf character, aroma, color, clarity, body, complexity, and above all, flavor.

Whole-leaf varietals retain the subtle nuances of flavor so prized by discriminating palates throughout the centuries. High quality suppliers are dedicated to offering outstanding, whole-leaf teas of the greatest quality and finesse.
Purchasing, Quality Control and Customer Service
Nevertheless, quality tea is easily available through e-commerce outlets on the internet. Most loose leaf teas are not available in retail outlets. Access to high quality loose leaf tea is the final element.
Loose leaf tea is ideally suited to e-commerce because it is light and easy to transport. Increasingly e-commerce over the internet has proven to be an efficient and easy way to purchase quality products and those e-commerce sites that are customer friendly also offer convenient and low cost home delivery.
When evaluating e-commerce sites, the consumer should consider those sites that are interactive, easy to use and offer rich features such as auto shipping, multiple destination shipments, gift shipments and delivery flexibility.
The loose leaf tea experience is all about quality and quality does not end with manufacturing. Those suppliers that are truly dedicated to quality will maintain quality control over each shipment received from the producing tea garden.
Since almost all quality loose leaf tea comes from other countries such as China, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and others, choose a supplier who cups or tastes each shipment before acceptance. This measure of quality control will guarantee consistent quality but most loose leaf tea suppliers skip this important step. Check with a potential supplier to determine their cupping commitment.
Since the purchase of high quality loose tea tends to be a long term relationship, consideration of the needs of the customer and customer satisfaction is paramount. In addition to quality control, customer service is a critical element in the loose tea relationship.
The best suppliers have a culture of customer service, open lines of communication to customer service personnel and solicit feedback from customers as a way to maintain consistent quality.
Golden Moon Tea's website is found at Stout is Chairman of the Board of Golden Moon Tea is a supplier of high quality loose leaf tea and high quality tea ware. Jon M.
http://www.Goldenmoontea.com

Tea Manufacturers India

Tea and Wine: Educating the palate
Why do connoisseurs pay more for a Chateau Neuf du Pape or a Merlot and insist on a particular year over the others? And how much did you pay for it? When was the last time you bought wine which said ‘French Table Wine, and poured out of a box?
On the other hand why do the same people feel content buying tea out of a box, which says Indian or Ceylon tea?
Tea, like wine, has qualities that depend on its geographical location. So just as a red wine from Chile will taste differently from a red wine from France, orthodox teas from India will be very different from orthodox teas from Ceylon or Kenya. Wines in France, too, will have regional differences with a Cotes du Rhone having a taste and bouquet unlike that of a Burgundy or Loire grape.
Then, of course there is the difference between vineyards within the region as it is with tea estates, which depend not only on the geographical location, but also on how the property is run and its quality controls. Similarly, among the teas in India, Terai teas will taste differently from Darjeeling, Assam or Nilgiris.
But once you master it, becoming a connoisseur of tea can be as much fun, as fascinating, if not healthier than being a wine connoisseur. All of this may be bewildering at first. And then there are the different qualities of wine of each vineyard as there are different grades of tea of each estate.
Normally, the so-called ‘estate-fresh' specialty teas that you buy in the supermarket gets there after passing through the hands of a number of middle-men, often sitting in warehouses of dusty ports for months before it reaches your cup. Unlike wines, though, tea does not do well with age.
Try a cup of tea, which has reached you directly within days of being plucked.
Most tea estates limit their expertise to the manufacture of one type of specialty tea. Nuxalbari Tea Estate India is probably one of the very few gardens that is proud to make all three different types of specialty Indian teas with equal finesse.
Upon espying a choice piece of virgin land, the young man would scoop a handful of earth, bury his nose in it, inhale deeply and pronounce, "good, plant," or "rubbish, move on." Family legend has it that he built his fortune led entirely by his nose. In 1899, my great-grandfather, the Nawab of Jalpaiguri, traveled on elephant back across the swampy jungles of northeast India, clearing great swathes of land and planting delicate tea saplings imported from China.
It was first established in 1884 by a British tea planter, and bought by the Nawab in 1910, who then doubled its production by planting areas thought to be unfit by the earlier owner. Nuxalbari, though, was one of the few tea plantations that he did not plant himself entirely. By the end of his life he owned 22 tea plantations from upper Assam to the Dooars.
His genes survive. The Nawab of Jalpaiguri, Musharraf Hussain was one of the first Indians to make tea planting his passion.