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A Primer on
Tea, or How to Become a Tea Snob
Tea is experiencing a revival in the west, but it
has been a popular beverage world-wide for thousands of years. Most of the tea we drink in the western
hemisphere is black tea, but herbal tisanes started to be a part of our culture in the 60's, and we are drinking more green tea since the
revelations about its health benefits.
Most of the tea (camellia sinensis) we drink, black or green, is
blended to make sure that you can reach for your favorite brand and get the
same flavor year after year. There's
nothing wrong with that; we all have our quick favorites.
Still, there are other ways to enjoy tea. As with wine, you can enjoy individual
varietals, blended year after year for consistency. You can also branch out into vintages and
flushes (picking seasons), such as a 2008 Darjeeling first, second
or autumnal flush. And, with all the
teas available these days, you don't have to depend on other people to blend
your tea. Educate your palate and you'll
be able to play around with your own blends.
There are many types of tea. The main groupings are based on the type of
processing they go through. The five main
types are White, Green, Oolong, Black and Pu-erh. White is the least processed and has the
least caffeine; Pu-erh is the most processed and has the most caffeine. These are five very different types of tea,
with very different nuances and flavor profiles.
Let’s start with the basics of the five varieties.
White teas come primarily from Ceylon, China and India. Young leaves are dried to remove all moisture
but the natural flavor of the delicate picking is preserved. Light in body, a
white tea yields a refined infusion that is naturally sweet.
Green teas primarily come from Kenya, China, Formosa, India, Indonesia, Japan, Ceylon and Vietnam. Green teas, the earliest form of tea, are
processed without oxidation. An infusion
of green tea leaves creates a light and refreshing drink. The flavors of green teas are primarily
vegetal and grassy, with a slight bitterness that is more pronounced than in
more processed teas.
Oolong teas come primarily from China, Formosa, India and Thailand. Oolong has a taste more like green tea than
black tea, but Oolong is its own animal.
It lacks both the flowery, sweet aroma of black tea and the strong
grassy, vegetal notes associated with green tea. As a tradeoff, a noted characteristic of
Oolong tea is a lingering sweet aftertaste.
Oolong goes well with food, and is one of the teas commonly found in
Chinese restaurants.
Black teas come from all over the world. Africa gives us teas from Kenya and Malawi,
Asia has Ceylon, China, Formosa, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam, and the
Caucasus regions of Turkey and Russia span the bridge between Asia and
Europe. The flavor of black teas depends
upon the country of origin, the geographic area and estate where it is grown,
when it is picked, and the grade of the leaves.
Black tea is generally stronger and more complex in flavor than the less
processed teas.
Pu-Erh teas go through a double fermentation
during which the tea leaves actually begin to decompose. They have a strong, earthy flavor and
aroma. They can be an acquired taste,
but they are typically flowery and sweet, with an underlying earthiness. Pu-erh teas are available in leaf form, but
customarily come as pressed cakes or bricks.
The kilo-sized bricks used to be coated with shellac and sold as
souvenirs! (They made great doorstops
and bookends.)
Sounds simple, eh? Au contraire!
There are many varieties of each, and also crossovers between
groups. There are White Pu-Erhs,
Darjeelings and Assams. There also white and green Darjeelings and Assams. There are also flavored varieties amongst all
of these, like White, Green and Black Jasmines.
And the classic Earl Grey is created by the addition of oil of bergamot
(a variety of citrus) to (usually) black tea.
There are vast differences in the same type of
tea from different places. Terroir
matters with wine, and with tea. A
Chinese Lapsang Souchong or Jasmine is very different from the Formosan
variety. And a Darjeeling from one
estate has a very different flavor profile from another estate a few miles down
the road. There are even differences on
the same estate, depending upon the altitude and soil where the tea is grown. The world of tea really is a world unto
itself, the same as wine.
Let's take a minute here for some tea terms. Lapsang Souchong is named for both the
process and the leaf size customarily used in its production. Souchong refers to a tea made from the larger
older leaves of the shoot. Pekoe and
Orange Pekoe are also leaf sizes, with Pekoe a slightly larger leaf than Orange
Pekoe.
There are also quality grades to contend
with. Most of those are based on the
appearance of the leaf itself, which sort of matters and sort of doesn’t. It does indicate the care that was taken in
the processing of the tea. Quality tea
production is very labor intensive, so most of the tea we see is CTC (cut,
tear, curl). CTC is machine processed
tea. The bulk of the tea market consists
of CTC, because it is cheaper to produce, and quicker to brew. It produces broken leaves, fannings and dust,
all of which are cheaper grades and more convenient for tea bags and cheap
blended teas.
On the other hand, you can buy a Sungma Estate
SFTGFOP1 First Flush. Huh? It's easy.
Sungma is an estate in the Darjeeling district, and
the letters mean that this tea is from the first picking of the year, and it is
Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe - grade 1. Are you impressed now? You'll probably be more impressed when you
taste the tea. By the way, if you see
the word “clonal,” it’s just another way of saying that one variety was grafted
onto another root stock, much the same as with grape vines or fruit trees.
Where and how do you start? Many reputable tea merchants offer sample
sizes of most of their teas. You can buy
10-12 gram packets that will make three to four cups, enough to sample and take
notes. That note-taking process will
prove invaluable. Once you've bought 10
different Darjeelings you're not going to remember which one had that lingering
sweetness, or which one had the great nuttiness. And trust me, once you’ve tried three samples
of something special, you’ll want to try ten.
Just remember, there are broken leaf grades of Darjeeling that may not
be as pretty but will produce just as impressive a cup. The key is to keep trying. The same goes for every variety of tea. Just keep buying those samples, and find out
what you like. Your tea diary will
become your best friend.
Now we’ve come to the point where tea and wine
differ. Many people collect wines of
different vintages and vineyards. But
they drink them. Nobody would consider
mixing them; they’ve bought the specific wines for their individual
characteristics. The wine producers do
some mixing, and that’s how non-vintage wines are produced. But they don’t use their best wines for
blending.
And neither do commercial tea blenders. But that’s just what tea connoisseurs
can do. You can develop your own
blends. Look at your notes and see what
you liked and didn't like. Pick a
foundation flavor and move on from there.
You might like the overall character of a sweet but fairly neutral Ceylon to start
with. On the other hand, you may be
looking to create a bracing breakfast brew, with a good, malty Assam as a
foundation.
Now, decide what flavors you want to boost. Perhaps that Ceylon would be
complemented by the depth and flowery, fruity notes of a second flush Darjeeling, for a refreshing
afternoon blend. That same Ceylon might make a
great addition to the Assam, adding its
own subtle sweetness to a great early morning pick up. Either one might be complemented by a flowery
touch of Jasmine or the smoky and mysterious edge of a bit of Lapsang. It’s that magic Lapsang that gives the
customary character to most Russian blends.
Ceylon is frequently
the base for English breakfast, and Irish Breakfast can be entirely Assam or a blend of
Assam with other
yummies. Perhaps you’d like to find a
good Earl Grey and see what you can do to enhance it. Anything is possible.
It just depends on your taste. Enjoy the health benefits of your tea. It’s nice that something so delicious can
also be good for you. But don’t overlook
it as a hobby or an object for obsession, for it can become either. You can take a secret pride in being able to
taste a tea and know that it has a good percentage of Darjeeling, or
Keemun. And you can become one of those
crazies who insist on boiling fresh water for your custom blended tea that
accompanies you wherever you go. There
are worse fates.
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