Tea Varietals

Wu Long? Green? Black?

What's your cup of tea?
Or something more exotic like pu-erh or white tea?
The major difference between all of these types of tea is how the leaves are processed after they are picked. No matter which your preference, all tea comes from the same plant - Camellia sinensis.
The others are primarily used as flowering shrubs. There are as many as 300 species of Camellia, but only one of them is used to make tea. Camellia is a genus of the family Theaceae. Even so, not all tea leaves are equal.
The assamica variety will grow to a larger plant than sinensis and has larger, thinner leaves. The sinensis variety has relatively small and narrow leaves and is more tolerant to cold. assamica (Assam tea or Indian tea). sinensis (China tea) and Camellia sinensis var.

The "tea Camellia" (Camellia sinensis) has two varieties - Camellia sinensis var.
Varietals have special characteristics that make them suitable for growing in a particular area or for producing a certain type of tea. As with most Camellias, Camellia sinensis is very easy to hybridize and this had led to the development of more than 3000 tea ‘varietals'.
Other varietals may have higher resistance to diseases which can affect the tea plant. White tea, for example, is produced from a varietal that has an abundance of fine hairs on the young leaf shoots. Varietals can be identified by leaf shape, coloring, leaf size, or other desirable characteristics.
‘Da Bai' (big white) is a varietal used to make the Japanese green tea of the same name. Many varietals are given names that describe the appearance or the use of the tea leaf.
A varietal traditionally used for white tea could be processed into wu long tea, or a black tea varietal could be used to make green tea. Most varietals have come to be associated with a certain type of tea, but this does not mean that specific varietals cannot be used for other teas.
The taste of tea is affected by the soil, the climate, the season, the varietal, the variety, the processing method, the skill of the tea processor, the brewing method, and the brewing utensils. One of the reasons why tea is so interesting is because of its limitless possibilities.
No wonder then that tea has been so popular for so many years - it's a taste of life. All of these factors affect the flavor and quality of the tea.
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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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