Hi friends!

I recently asked some other internet friends if they had questions about tea and they delivered! Quite a few of those questions were pretty general, so I thought it might be useful if I shared them here as well.

About Tea

Do all teas come from the same plant?

Many, if not all tea enthusiasts will define tea as the infusion of the plant camelia sinensis in water. So in that sense, yes, all tea comes from the same plant.

But, a lot of people have widened the use of the word “tea” to include tisanes, e.g. Chamomile Tea or Peppermint Tea. This disputed status means that “chamomile tea” and “chamomile tisane” and “chamomile infusion” may all be the same thing and what the concoction of “chamomile/herb of choice in water” is called depends on how the person selling the dry herbs define tea.

I’d also like to add that this mixing of tea made from the camellia sinensis plant and other plants is not exclusive to the English language. In Chinese and Japanese, any type of plant in water is called “茶”; for example, sakura tea (桜茶), chrysanthemum tea (菊花茶), etc.

What Kinds of Tea Are There?

Looking at processing methods (actually, degree of oxidation), there are six types of tea:

• Black tea, also known as red tea in Chinese – this is fully oxidised
• Green tea – this refers to barely oxidised (oxidation starts from the moment you pluck the leaf so I won’t say it’s 9% oxidised) tea that also goes through withering process(withering = remove excess water). We can think of green tea as being minimally processed. 
• White Tea – the least processed type of tea, all you do here is dry the leaves.  
• Oolong tea/blue tea – Oolong is a broad category referring to partially oxidised teas. There is no set percentage of oxidations which is why some oolongs are closer to green teas while others are closer to black teas 
• Yellow teas – Yellow teas are pretty rare but basically, there is a period of yellowing the leaves (they place it in a heap and let the heat do its work) to mellow it out further. It’s got a slightly nutty note, compared to green tea, in my experience
• Dark tea, also known as black tea in Chinese – these are teas which have been post-fermented (i.e. has good mold growing on them, like blue cheese). Puer is probably the most famous example (though some people are campaigning to make puer it’s own category) but there are post-fermented teas outside of China too, like the Goishicha tea from Japan. 

I’d also like to point out another “type” of tea, which is aged tea. Two teas that are commonly ages are white teas and raw puer (raw puer = puer that is not fermented) and these teas tend to increase in price the longer they’ve been aged. There is even a saying: 一年茶 三年药 七年宝 (one year tea, three years medicine, seven years treasure).

If you’re interested in reading more, I wrote a post on the types of tea here. I also have a separate post for puer, if you’d like to dig into the topic.

Why do some regions specialise in certain types of tea? Because if it’s dependent on the roasting/oxidation then does the origin of the plant matter?

This is pretty tricky but I can think of two, interlinked, reasons for why certain areas specialise in/are famous for specific teas:

Tradition: For example, if you are in a region famous for puer (Yunnan, basically) and people are paying premium prices for puer from your region, so obviously it makes sense to just make puer and not black tea. So it’s a self-fulfilling cycle. 

Terroir: Tea is a bit like wine in that the location of the farm will affect the tea – one easy example is that teas grown in the mountains tend to grow slower than teas in the valley and that affects the taste of the tea. Another example would be the type of soil, which may affect the growth of the tea as well.

I think that these two factors may lead to a virtuous cycle: some farmers a region decides to specialise in a type of tea that grows well there, it becomes famous for that type of tea, and eventually everyone just farms that one type of tea because that is what sells.

Unfortunately, this can lead to teas from other regions being overlooked. For example, there are teas grown in Nepal, which has an extremely similar climate and terroir as Darjeeling. These teas are so similar that some people pass off Nepalese teas as Darjeeling so they can earn more. In this case, why does Darjeeling cost so much more? Because the tea from Darjeeling is famous. Terroir and tradition at work.

What other factors go into deciding the flavour of the teas?

Off the top of my head, things that affect the taste of the tea include: 

• Cultivar: Broadly speaking, the camellia sinensis can be divided into two variations: camellia sinensis var sinensis (referring to the Chinese plant, normally with smaller leaves) and camellia sinensis var assamic (a variation found in Assam, with bigger leaves). And within these variations there are even more sub-types of teas called cultivars – e.g. Okuharuka (has a more floral taste due to higher amounts of coumarin), Tieguanyin (a cultivar and a way of processing tea, confusingly), Fukumidori (I find this has a bit of a citrus note), etc. Some cultivars are made for specific purposes (e.g. Gokoh was made to be a gyokuro tea, so it grows well under shade) and so have a specific taste. 
• Processing method: Easiest way to describe this is to think of Chinese green tea vs Japanese green tea. Chinese green tea tends to be pan-fried to stop oxidation while Japanese green tea (sencha) is steamed and the two taste quite different!
• Skill of the tea master: this is especially true for oolongs. If the rolling is not done well, or the roasting is too strong/too weak then the tea may taste off. 
• Terroir: Is this tea grown in the mountains? Was there a lot of sun? Was it very cold? If it affects the growth of the plant, it will probably affect the taste of the tea
• When it was harvested: I once tasted two oolongs from the same farm and same cultivar. Only difference was that one was harvested 4 days earlier and the early harvest one had this unpleasant vegetal taste. 

Drinking Tea 

Other than quality, what is the difference between tea bags and loose leaf tea? What should I take note of when choosing between the two?

To me, these are the main differences between loose leaf and teabag. 

A) Quality of leaves – Generally, teabag teas contain lower quality leaves or even tea dust. That said, this can be a bit contentious because there are brands that put whole leaves in their teabags and you can probably buy loose CTC (crush, tear, curl) black tea too.

Point to Note: generally, if you’re buying teabags, you’ll want something where they explicitly say they use whole leaves unless you want builder’s tea, in which case, tea dust is fine! It will infuse fast and give you a really thick tea liquor

B) Shape of Teabag – In most cases, a teabag is inferior to loose leaf because there’s no space for the leaves to expand! BUT, if you’re using those metal tea infusers or a very small filter, then loose leaves won’t improve the flavour of the tea that much because there’s no space to expand anyway. 

Point to note: So basically for optimal flavour, either:

1. look for pyramidal teabags, these let the leaves expand a bit more, or
2. use a big filter or a pot with the filter built into the sprout! The T2 teamaker is great cause the filter is at the bottom

C) Amount of tea leaves – Most teabags don’t contain a lot of tea, so if you’re making for a pot or for a big cup, the tea may end up tasting a bit thin! That said, I have seen some exception, mostly from Japanese tea makers (especially the smaller farms) making teabags with more tea (6g or more)

Point to note: Check how much tea is in the teabag. If you feel the tea is weak, feel free to put two teabags in. 

For more on teabags, check out this post.

Is it true you shouldn’t leave the teabag/tea leaves in the pot?

Ideally, you should pour out every drop of tea from the teapot when serving. If you can’t pour out all the tea, remove the infuser/teabag. It’s not good to soak the teabag or the loose leaves in the pot because if there is water, the tea leaves will keep soaking and the next pot of tea will taste bitter (the bitter taste comes from tannins in the tea and tannins are released through hot water and/or long steeping times). 

That said, there is a style of brewing called “grandpa style” where people put the tea leaves in the cup and just keep topping up with water (so the leaves are at the bottom, continually infusing). I think in those cases, the water isn’t that hot and anyway they keep diluting the tea. There is no one right way to drink tea – the best way is the way you prefer!

My tea is expired, can I still drink it?

Most of the time, it’s fine to drink expired tea because tea doesn’t really go bad (since it’s essentially dried leaves). There may be a loss in flavour, but the tea itself should be safe. That said, there are two huge exceptions:

1. If there are dried fruits in the tea blend – fruits have a higher water content and they may go bad.
2. If the tea looks moldy and/or it smells funky – I’ve said that tea doesn’t go bad, but if you stored it improperly and it was exposed to water and heat, it may grow mold and that means you should dump the tea.

In general, take a look and sniff at the tea before deciding whether to toss it out. If it’s plain tea (just leaves, nothing else) and it looks and smells fine, it should be okay to drink.

Misc

Does Oolong tea help you lose weight?

Good question! I was tempted to dismiss this as marketing but a quick check on Google Scholar showed a few promising studies. The one that I liked best was a Chinese study, because 1) they were tested on humans and not mice, and 2) had a sample size of over 100 people. In this study, they had a group of subjects drink 8g of oolong (2g brewed for 5 min in 300 ml of water, drunk 4 times a day) for 6 weeks, 70% of the subjects lost over 1kg (22% lost over 3kg). All these subjects started off as obese, though, so I’m not sure whether oolong will help if you’re not-obese. A smaller Japanese study of 11 females with BMI of about 21 (so just at the top of the healthy range) showed that oolong increased Energy Expenditure by 10% 120minutes after the oolong was consumed, compared to 4% for green tea. This study suggests it’s because the polymerised polyphenols of oolong increases energy expenditure. 

Polymerised polyphenols come about because oolongs are semi-oxidised, but I didn’t really see how oxidised the oolongs were in these studies. 

So my conclusion is that it looks like that oolong can help in weight loss, but it’s not going to be very dramatic (1kg in 6 weeks could also be due to weight fluctuation, although I’m sure the researchers took that into consideration). I suppose that if you’re normally drinking bbt and other sweet drinks, swapping that for tea is going to cut your calories by quite a bit (tea is virtually calorie free if you don’t add sugar) and that could help in a diet? 

Is Puer Caffeine Free?

No.

Because Puer is made from camellia sinensis, it naturally contains caffeine. This is especially so for young raw puer, which has not had the benefits the fermentation. Ripe puer may have less caffeine than raw puer, since it is fermented before being sold, but it is still not going caffeine free.

Sidenote: I’ve been told by tea salesmen that puer is caffeine free. So I consider this an excellent question if you want to check whether your tea vendor knows (at least some of) the basics of puer.

Any other questions?

And that’s it from me! I hope you found this helpful and if you have any questions about tea, please let me know and I’ll try to answer.

If you found this helpful, please consider tipping via my ko-fi page and helping me continue my tea drinking ways!