Tea is made from the dried leaves of the Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, which was first cultivated in China and found growing wild in India. Chinese monks and European traders introduced it to Japan, Sri Lanka and other countries. Today there are more than 3000 varieties of tea, each having its own distinct character and named for the district in which it is grown. Green tea is produced by steaming fresh-picked leaves before heat-drying. Black tea is produced by allowing picked tea leaves to completely ferment before firing. Oolong teas are only partially fermented.

Processing :

A tree plant matures in three to five years and produces a flush, the growth of new shoots. Each shoot consists of few leaves and a bud. At low altitude the growth of the tea bush is so rapid in the growing seasons that they need picking every few days to ensure that only the best tips are plucked. The best tips are those young and tender. Because of this the tea industry becomes very labour intensive. At higher altitudes it takes as long as two weeks to grow a flush. Tea plants do not produce flushes in cold weather.
With the development and mechanization in practically all areas of agriculture, people have tried mechanizing the tea industry as well, yet the best comes only when the tips are handpicked.After tea leaves are picked they are inspected and sorted by hand. Withering takes place as water evaporates and the natural process of fermentation takes place . Fermentation , also known as oxidation , does not produce alcohol . Enzymes oxidize the tea leaf and turn it brown just like a tree leaf in the fall changes colors from green to brown .This process is accelerated by increased heat and high humidity .

Types of Tea :

Tea breaks down into three basic types: black, green and oolong. In the U.S., over 90 percent of the tea consumed is black tea, which has been fully oxidized or fermented and yields a hearty-flavored, amber brew. Some of the popular black teas include English Breakfast (good breakfast choice since its hearty flavor mixes well with milk), Darjeeling (a blend of Himalayan teas with a flowery bouquet suited for lunch) and Orange Pekoe (a blend of Ceylon teas that is the most widely used of the tea blends).

Green tea skips the oxidizing step. It has a more delicate taste and is light green/golden in color. Green tea, a staple in the Orient, is gaining popularity in the U.S. due in part to recent scientific studies linking green tea drinking with reduced cancer risk.

Oolong tea, popular in China, is partly oxidized and is a cross between black and green tea in color and taste.

While flavored teas evolve from these three basic teas, herbal teas contain no true tea leaves. Herbal and "medicinal" teas are created from the flowers, berries, peels, seeds, leaves and roots of many different plants.


History :

Tea is nearly 5,000 years old and was discovered, as legend has it, in 2737 b.c. by a Chinese emperor Legend, Chinese Emperor Shen Nung . A fastidious man, he always had his drinking water boiled, convinced that this would protect him from the the prevalent diseases of the time.

One day, while making a tour of the provinces, Shen Nung requested that his servants boil some water for him. They made a fire using branches from a nearby camellia bush. Some of the ends of the branches escaped the fire and extended upward. Caught by a passing breeze, a few leaves were released from the branches' hold and floated down into the heating water. The emperor's attention was caught by the aroma which arose from the pot. Intrigued, he drank some of the broth. Immediately captivated by the taste and refreshing quality of the brew, the emperor knew he had discovered something of great importance.

The Chinese were familiar with camellia leaves, which they used in vegetable relishes and quite probably as part of medicinal compounds. But until the emperor's discovery, the leaves had never been considered an ingredient of a hot, refreshing drink. News of the emperor's discovery spread quickly throughout China, and soon everyone was trying the beverage. Before long, tea (known as Ch'a) became an important part of Chinese culture.

As the centuries passed and trade with the West opened up, the status of tea increased. Tea was introduced to continental Europe during Elizabethan times, but did not reach English shores until the years 1657-1660. It was the Dutch who first brought tea to the continent. The Russians also knew about it before the English, as did the Portuguese. And it was a Venetian, Gian Battista Ramusio, who was the first European to write about tea.

When tea was finally introduced to the English populace, it was a very hard sell. Enormously expensive and advertised for its medicinal purposes, tea was very slow to catch on in the British empire. The turning point came when King Charles 2 ascended the throne. King Charles drank tea throughout the day, delighting in the delicate taste and fragrant aroma for which green teas are appreciated. His habit was adopted first by the rest of the court and then by the entire country. Tea was sipped in homes, in taverns, and in pleasure gardens by the aristocracy as well as their servants.

Tea also enjoyed immense popularity in the American Colonies until the late eighteenth century. But when King George 3 decided to use tea as a source of revenue and raise the import tax on tea sent to the Colonies, the independent-minded Americans rebelled. Today American schoolchildren learn about the famous Boston Tea Party protesting the British tea tax -- one of the acts leading to the Revolutionary War. During this century, two major American contributions to the tea industry occurred. In 1904, iced tea was created at the World's Fair in St. Louis, and in 1908, Thomas Sullivan of New York developed the concept of tea in a bag..

Health

The health benefits of tea have been receiving attention in the media. Tea's ability to promote good health has long been promoted and believed in China. Recent research has been able to identify the components in tea that appear to be directly related to tea's health promoting benefits.

Several substances, classified as antioxidants (also referred to as polyphenols), are found in tea and these are the components that are able to combine with unstable positively charged oxygen molecules, otherwise known as 'free radicals'. The 'free radicals' have been shown to cause not only cellular damage but also can damage DNA. As a consequence to the damage, various health problems develop.

Tea's active ingredients are caffeine in combination with the tannin that gives it its pungency and much of its aroma and flavor (which essential oils also enhance). The New York Academy of Medicine held a symposium on "Pharmacological and Physiological Effects of Tea" in 1955 and found that, for reasons they could not explain, tea, unlike coffee, does not cause nervousness, insomnia, or stomach irritation when drunk in quantity. The scientists' tests showed a cup of tea gives both an immediate and a delayed lift without secondary depressing effects later on. They agreed tea is a good agent for relieving fatigue and aids clearness of thought and digestion alike.

For years, studies in China and Japan have shown that the folklore about tea does contain some truth -- it does promote longer life. Japanese smokers have only half the lung cancer rate as American smokers. In areas of Japan where the most tea is drunk, the rate of stomach cancer is the lowest. In a study of 6,000 Japanese women, those who drank 5 cups or more of green tea per day cut their risk of strokes by 50 percent. "Drinking tea with meals in Japan and China," says a cancer researcher at the University of British Columbia, "is thought to be a major reason for low cancer rates in these countries."
Long-term consumption of black tea -- the kind that most Americans and Europeans drink -- and of other foods such as apples containing chemicals called flavonoids was associated with a much lower risk of stroke in a study of 552 Dutch men. Flavonoids are natural vitaminlike compounds. They make blood cells called platelets less prone to clotting, and act as antioxidants, countering the artery-damaging potential of highly reactive free radical chemicals.
In the study, men with a high flavonoid intake had a 73 percent lower risk of stroke during 15 years of follow-up, compared with men with a low intake of flavonoids. The men in the study got about 70 percent of their flavonoids from drinking black tea.
Men who drank more than 4.7 cups of tea a day had a 69 percent reduced risk of stroke compared with men who drank less than 2.6 cups a day, said the researchers of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
Tea also helps prevent tooth decay in several ways. It contains a solid dose of fluoride and works better than the antibiotic tetracycline. According to researchers at the Tokyo Dental College, it fights the kinds of bacteria in the mouth that cause gum disease and the eventual loss of the teeth. It also kills the greatest cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth, Streptococcus mutans.
In addition, researchers in Australia announced that a cup of tea could be the next weapon in the fight against skin cancer. A study by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization revealed that mice made to sip black tea suffered 54 percent fewer cancers than those that drank water. Both sets of test animals were exposed to levels of ultraviolet rays that an average Australian receives.
Earlier studies on black tea have shown that it can be effective against some forms of cancer and may even prevent heart and liver disease. Properties in green and black tea called antioxidants are thought to be active agents against skin cancer. In the past 10 to 15 years, a growing body of research has shown that foods and vitamins with a strong anti-oxidant effect may reduce the risk of many diseases, including cancer and aging.




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