Loose Leaf Teas & Tea Bags Speciality Tea

All varieties of tea (black, white, green and oolong) are a rich source of protective plant compounds, called polyphenols. Catechins in green tea and theaflavins in black tea are the compounds responsible for most of these health benefits. Other factors to consider include how hot the water used for brewing is and the length of steeping time. Pickled tea is usually eaten with roasted sesame seeds, crispy fried beans, roasted peanuts and fried garlic chips. These are the most abundant compounds in tea leaves, making up 30–40% of their composition.

Tea recipes

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• Tea is also made, but rarely, from the leaves of Camellia taliensis and Camellia formosensis.

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• Examples of additional processing steps that occur before tea is sold are blending, flavouring, scenting, and decaffeination of teas.

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• The liquor is pale or yellow in colour, as in green tea, and has a unique malty, or smoky, flavour.

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• Tea contains small amounts of theobromine and theophylline, which are xanthines and stimulants, similar to caffeine.

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• Tea is consumed both at home and outside the home, often in cafés or tea rooms.

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• Many types of Southern Yunnan Assam tea have been hybridized with the closely related species Camellia taliensis.

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Tibetans and other Himalayan peoples traditionally drink tea with milk or yak butter and salt. In Eastern European countries, and in Russia and Italy, tea is commonly served with lemon juice. Examples of additional processing steps that occur before tea is sold are blending, flavouring, scenting, and decaffeination of teas.

Processing and classification

• A tea plant will grow into a tree of up to 16 m (52 ft) if left undisturbed, but cultivated plants are generally pruned to waist height for ease of plucking.

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• Strainers, tea balls, tea presses, filtered teapots, and infusion bags prevent loose leaves from floating in the tea and over-brewing.

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• Even when it becomes just cool enough to be sipped gingerly, it is still a good-tasting cup of tea, if you like your tea strong and sweet.

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• Since there are no known wild populations of this tea, its origin is speculative.
• Tea smuggling during the 18th century led to the general public being able to afford and consume tea.

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• In the Song dynasty, the tea powder would instead be whisked with hot water in the bowl.

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«Instant tea», similar to freeze-dried instant coffee and an alternative to brewed tea, can be consumed either hot or cold. Additives such as chai, vanilla, honey or fruit, Tea Spins are popular, as is powdered milk. Compressed tea was the most popular form of tea in China during the Tang dynasty. In Mongolia, tea bricks were ubiquitous enough to be used as a form of currency. In addition to a zone 8 climate or warmer, tea plants require at least 1,200 millimetres (47 in) of rainfall per year and prefer acidic soils. Many high-quality tea plants are cultivated at elevations of up to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) above sea level.

Production

Thus, Western Yunnan Assam tea and Indian Assam tea both may have originated from the same parent plant in the area where southwestern China, Indo-Burma, and Tibet meet. However, as the Indian Assam tea shares no haplotypes with Western Yunnan Assam tea, Indian Assam tea is likely to have originated from an independent domestication. These may be called tisanes or herbal infusions to prevent confusion with tea made from the tea plant. Furthermore, it would appear that adding a small amount of milk and sugar to tea appears to make little difference to the levels of l-theanine, but adding high amounts of milk does. Sugar added to hot drinks, like tea, counts as a ‘free sugar’ – the type we are advised to cut back on. Tea is consumed both at home and outside the home, often in cafés or tea rooms.

• Tea was originally consumed only by Anglo-Indians; however, it became widely popular in India in the 1950s because of a successful advertising campaign by the India Tea Board.

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• During the Han and Six Dynasties, tea was steamed and pounded, shaped into cake form, slowly dried over low fire, and suspended to air dry.

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• Mosquito bugs can damage leaves both by sucking plant materials, and by the laying of eggs (oviposition) within the plant.

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• Polyphenols found in tea may work with other factors to slow the development of certain types of cancer.

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• Starkov at first refused, seeing no use for a load of dead leaves, but the Khan insisted.

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• The first published account of methods of planting, processing, and drinking came in 350 ce.

Loose tea

The Classic of Tea, a treatise on tea and its preparations, was written by the 8th century Chinese writer, Lu Yu. The current Chinese word for tea (茶) appeared in The Classic of Tea by removing a stroke from the word tu. Tea drinking may have begun in the region of Yunnan, where it was used for medicinal purposes. People in ancient East Asia ate tea for centuries, perhaps even millennia, before ever consuming it as a beverage. In 1669 the English East India Company brought China tea from ports in Java to the London market. Later, teas grown on British estates in India and Ceylon reached Mincing Lane, the centre of the tea trade in London.

Honey cake and caramelised apples

Tea is the drink produced by steeping the young leaves and leaf buds of the Camellia sinensis plant in freshly boiled water. Although often referred to as ‘teas’, herbal and rooibos infusions are made from different plants, so won’t offer the same health benefits as a traditional cuppa. Through the centuries, a variety of techniques for processing tea, and a number of different forms of tea, were developed. During the Han and Six Dynasties, tea was steamed and pounded, shaped into cake form, slowly dried over low fire, and suspended to air dry. Chunks of tea were then boiled to drink, flavoured with orange peels, jujube, mint, ginger or scallion.
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Tea Guides: How To Make Your Perfect Cup Of Tea

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Around 800 the first seeds were brought to Japan, where cultivation became established by the 13th century. Chinese from Amoy brought tea cultivation to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1810. It is sometimes served with biscuits to be dipped in the tea and eaten before consuming the tea.