Tea News

Black Teas:

Black tea is manufactured under either orthodox or CTC process, but more oxidized than the Green, Oolong and White varieties. All these four varieties are processed only from leaves of Camellia sinensis. Black tea is generally stronger in flavor and contains more caffeine than the other less oxidized teas.

The black tea in general is available both in leaf and dust form, in both the orthodox and CTC.

CTC DUSTS:

The grades of CTC are Super Fine Dust, Fine Dust, Super Red Dust, Red Dust, and Pekoe Dust in the order of increase in sizes. There are Golden Dust and Super Dust also which are still powdery than the SFD and look slightly golden and brownish respectively.

ORTHODOX DUSTS:

In Orthodox tea dust, there is a grade called PD and a powdery dust called BOP Dust. One more powdery tea is named as BOP Fannings Dust.

CTC LEAF:

Like wise in Black leaf teas, the CTC has Broken Orange Pekoe and Pekoe grades which are spherical and bold in size. As the name implies, the Pekoe is bigger and the BOP is broken in size, smaller.

ORTHODOX LEAF:

Similarly in Orthodox black leaf teas, we have two main grades. One is Orange Pekoe and the other is BOP, both are non spherical.

BLACK TEA DRINK:

The ‘black tea’ is also referred to a tea drink served with out mixing milk. The very common practice in Asian countries is serving milky tea, as raw black tea drink is not consumed.

The black tea accounts for over ninety percent of all tea sold in the West.

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Oolong Tea:

Wu long is a traditional Chinese tea having a good amount of health benefits to the body and mind of tea lovers. The Oolong tea is manufactured from the very same tea plants.

OXIDATION /FERMENTATION:

However, the manufacturing process has a little variation to incorporate all the benefits of health. It is not a green tea with out oxidation and also not a black tea with too much of oxidation. It is really in between the two in oxidation process, having 10 to 70% in oxidation.

The semi oxidized teas are called “qingcha” meaning blue green tea. The Oolong tea is closer to green tea in taste. However, it is free from the harsh grassy taste of green tea. This will not have the pleasant rosy fragrance of black tea.

TEA SHAPE AND SIZE:

Oolong tea is processed in two different ways. Some teas are rolled into long curly leaves as in orthodox process, while some are pressed into granular teas like CTC. The former method of processing is the older of the two. It is commonly brewed to be strong with a taste of bitterness with a sweet aftertaste.

In general, drinking tea for a long time soothes the mind, uplifts the spirit, and prevents obesity and aging. Based on the fermentation, the effect of tea on health varies.

Green tea contains a wealth of one ingredient called catechin while black tea contains a lot of theaflavin. Oolong tea contains a large quantity of Polyphenols. According to research, it has become clear that Polyphenols is the ingredient that generates the delicious flavor unique to Oolong tea and also promotes beauty and health.

FAT BURNER:

Oolong tea burns over 157% more fat than Green Tea and therefore becoming the most popular teas designed to accelerate weigh loss.Drinking two cups of Oolong tea every day not only helps reducing weight by boosting your metabolism, but also blocks the fattening effects of carbohydrates.

HEALTH AND BEAUTY:

It promotes strong and healthy teeth. It prevents eczema and allergies; clarifies your skin giving it a healthy, radiant glow. It strengthens your immune system and improves cognitive functioning and mental well-being. Wu long / Oolong tea reduces free radicals to an incredible 50% level within just 15 days of consumption! Free radicals have been connected with aging, the formation of wrinkles, and colored spots on the skin.

Hence, the Oolong tea becomes a true natural product to make you healthy and younger from the inside out.

DRINK OOLONG AND LIVE LONG YOUTHFUL.

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Green tea:

Green, Black, and Oolong teas are all derived from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis, the common plant. People in Asian countries consume more commonly green and oolong tea while black tea is most popular in the United States.

Green tea is prepared from unfermented leaves, the leaves of Oolong tea are partially fermented, and black tea is fully fermented. Green tea has thus undergone minimal oxidation during processing.

HEALTH BENEFITS: Today, scientific research in both Asia and the west is providing solid evidence for the health benefits long associated with drinking green tea.

MEDICINAL VALUES:

The Chinese have recognized about the medicinal benefits of green tea since very old times, using it for headaches to depression.

· CANCER: Drinking green tea reduces the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent.

· POWER OF ECGC: The secret of green tea lies in the fact it is rich in Catechin Polyphenols, particularly Epi Gallo Catechin Gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant: besides inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, it kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. Green tea leaves are steamed, which prevents the EGCG compound from being oxidized.

· BLOOD CLOTS: Drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol. It has also been effective in lowering LDL cholesterol levels, and inhibiting the abnormal formation of blood clots.

· HEART ATTACKS: The latter takes on added importance when you consider that thrombosis, the formation of abnormal blood clots, is the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke.

· GREEN TEA IS AGAINST FAT AND SMOKE: Red wine contains Resveratrol, a Polyphenols that limits the negative effects of smoking and a fatty diet. But, EGCG is twice as powerful as resveratrol.

· HELPS SMOKER TOO: This may explain why the rate of heart disease among Japanese men is quite low, even though approximately seventy-five percent are smokers.

· TOOTH DECAY: Green tea can even help prevent tooth decay! Just as its bacteria-destroying abilities can help prevent food poisoning, it can also kill the bacteria that cause dental plaque.

· SKIN CARE: Meanwhile, skin care formulations containing green tea from deodorants to creams have started to appear on the market.

MAY CAUSE INSOMNIA:

The only negative side effect reported from drinking green tea is insomnia; it is due to the fact that it contains caffeine. However, green tea contains less caffeine than coffee; there are approximately thirty to sixty mg. of caffeine in tea, compared to one-hundred mg. in eight ounces of coffee.

Tea Tastes Differently When You Make It Differently.

Tea is a special drink that gives refreshment instantly. Tea is some thing special as it tastes differently when you get it from different estates every time. You know, all the popular estates give teas in their brands, but they taste slightly different every time.

As there are changes in weather conditions, manuring and fertilizing, cultural practices, pest and disease control, harvesting and processing etc with or with out knowledge, the tea characters also change. Tea lovers will easily find the change in color, taste and flavor too.

But to your surprise, you could see taste variations within a small quantity of tea from a single lot also when the tea drink is made differently.

TEA IN HOT WATER:

In the traditional way make the tea by just boiling 200 ml of water. Put a measured quantity of a teaspoonful of tea dusts. Allow it to boil for 2 minutes and filter it. Add 200 ml of boiled milk and 6 teaspoons of sugar to taste.
Whether you taste it raw or with sugar alone or with sugar and milk, the taste is fine. Keep the lingering taste in your memory.

This is generally practiced in homes.

TEA IN HOT DILUTED MILK AND SUGAR:

Now, take a 200 ml of water, 200 ml of milk, a teaspoonful of tea dust and 6 tea spoonful of sugar in a saucepan and boil all the ingredients at a time and allow boiling for 2 minutes. Now filter the tea and taste it. It is nice and different from the first kind of making. All the measured quantities are same as the first, but the making process is slightly different. The taste is a little more here.

This is practiced in canteens and functions where bulk tea is required for serving a good number of persons at a time.

TEA IN FILTER MEDIA:

Now take tea dust in a sieve and pour the boiling water through the tea dusts; get the tea extract in a bowl containing hot milk and sugar as measured earlier. The tea is called a filtered tea, though the ingredients are the very same. The filtered tea is more colorful and shows the taste differently.

This is the practice adopted in most tea shops of small and big sizes; but they are too busy in delivering tea to one or two or groups of persons in a short time. They make tea quickly and serve fast.

ROYAL TEAPOT:

Tea is taken in a teapot and boiling water is added and closed with the lid for 2 to 3 minutes. The tea is decanted and tasted. Tea will be added with sugar and hot milk and tasted in a royal style.

Please feel the taste of teas as different drinks made in different ways. The characters of tea like intensity of color, taste and flavor also changes with change in method to prepare a hot tea.

However, stick on to a method that keeps you happy with the taste lingering for a long time. Needless to say if you wish to enjoy these different tastes every now and then, you may go ahead.

Manufacturing of Tea-The Liquid Gold

Tea is cultivated in plantations. The ‘two leaves and a bud’ from all the terminal shoots are plucked and collected in gunny bags and transported to the top places of tea estates where the factories are generally located. Let us go through some brief story of manufacturing of various teas through different manufacturing processes.

GREEN TEAS: In short, the leaves are plucked and dried quickly to avoid fermentation altogether and also to ensure no chemical changes taking place in the leaves. These green teas are not very popular in India.

BLACK TEAS: We may say all the teas available in the market in packets with popular brands or sold as loose teas in whole sale and retail shops contain only one or more of the grades of black teas. The black teas are very popular and available everywhere in the tea market. They are plucked, withered, crushed, fermented and fired to finally sort into graded bulk teas.

OOLONG TEAS: These are teas harvested fresh semi fermented, dried and fired immediately so that the half baked tea aroma and characters are maintained to give a special taste. These have more of medicinal properties.

CULTIVATION:

All the agro climatic conditions and cultural practices have a say on the final produce in the field- green tea leaves. Just like that all manufacturing processes and conditions have great role in deciding the characteristics of final produce in the factory the black teas.

In general, the tea is manufactured by two well established processes: 1. Orthodox 2. C.T.C. The plantation will have factories of any one or two processes, depending on their requirements and conveniences.

WITHERING: Withering is a simple process that could be brought about by natural withering of green leaves to loose around 50 percentage of moisture in course of 10 to 18 hours, till the leaves become flaccid. However, withering is induced with the help of warm air circulating over the spread out green leaves for about 4 to 16 hours. (80- 85%RH, 68-82 deg. F)

TEA FERMENTATION:

The mass of the rolled leaves is laid in a cool, humid atmosphere to achieve optimum fermentation. The total time taken between the commencement of rolling and achievement of the optimum fermentation is to two to three hours, after which the enzymes must be destroyed. At the point of the time, the color of the leaf is bright gold.

TEA FIRING:

To arrest the fermentation, the mass of the leaf is exposed to hot air by passing through the chamber with perforated moving trays. The temperature of the air entering in to the chamber at its base ranges between 200 deg. F and 250 deg. F. (93 deg. C and 121 deg C). This process is called hot air blowing. The teas are taken in trays in furnace chambers and fired for about half an hour to reduce the leaf color to brown or black.

TEA SORTING/GRADING:

After the fired leaved have cooled to ambient temperature, it is ready for what is known as sorting or grading. The processed leaves are shifted through sieves and winnowed simultaneously. Now the graded teas are said to be factory bulked and ready for packing in plywood chests or gunny bags.

ORTHODOX PROCESS:

As the name denote, the process under the orthodox tea is an age old process. This involves after withering of plucked green tea leaves, a rolling or a grinding process to break the leaves, rupture the leaf cells for releasing the enzymes and twist or curl the leaves. It is achieved by rolling the leaves in a machine for one or two hours as if between the palms of human hands.


CTC PROCESS: CRUSHING, TEARING AND CURLING

Developed by MC. Kercher a planter in Assam (1934)

Crushing: After the withering process, the rolling process takes in turn with more severity than the orthodox process. This crushes the tea leaves in a way to release to enzymes for fermentation.

Tearing: After a brief conditioning, the leaf is passed through a machine comprising two steel cylinders( normally 30 inches long and 8 inches in diameter) with fine tooth like sharp ridges(8 to 10 ridges per inch of cylinder length and 50 or 60 ridges over the circumference).

The cylinders, with only marginal clearance between them, move in inverse direction at speeds of 70 and 700 rpm respectively. When the leaves are passed through two or three such machines consecutively, it is much reduced in size and most of their cells are ruptured. The object is to achieve accelerated as well as intensive fermentation.

Curling: Firing process make the teas into curled granulated form; sifting or grading are quite similar to that practiced under orthodox processes. The appearance of the final dry leaf is granulated and of a blackish or brown color, irrespective of the size or grade.

Tea of each grade is bulked, weighed and transferred to ply wood chests or bags for onward movement to markets.

Best Tea kinds-Tea Varieties-Tea Sizes

All the teas will look like one, but the tea lovers know the difference in taste and aroma with the kind, variety and size of teas. A few are still manufactured by traditional methods while many are processed by ultra modern machineries and technologies. Some are black, others are green and some others are medium in color. The sizes also vary. Be admired that the tastes also vary as the sizes vary.
Based on the manufacturing process Teas are classified in two kinds:

1. ORTHODOX TEA: As the name implies, the tea is manufactured by an old processing method. The machinery will act like a pair of palms facing each other, one up and the other down rubbing each other. In between lies the withered green tea leaves getting crushed and later fired in oven to give black teas.

2. CTC TEA: The modern machine processes leads to cutting, tearing and curling of withered green tea leaves. They are burnt at necessary temperatures in trays in an electric or oil fired furnace. The processed teas are graded and packed in bulk.

Based on the fermentation level, the teas are categorized into three levels:

1. BLACK TEAS: The processed teas are blackish in color as the fermentation and firing is a little more when compared.

2. OOLANG TEAS: The semi dried and low fired teas having their own special taste and color.

3. GREEN TEAS: The tea leaves are not fermented, but fried as such when they are green in color. These green teas have some special therapeutic values.

Based on the sizes of the teas or grades, the teas are classified as leaf and dust, though there are a number of grades in between.

1. LEAF TEAS: The tea leaf will be full in size or broken into pieces. They are called pekoe teas, orange pekoes and broken orange pekoes. They may either be under orthodox or CTC processed. While grading the leaf teas will form about 20 percent of the total production in any day.

2. DUST TEAS: The smaller sized teas are called as dusts and will contribute to about 80 percent when graded or sieved. These could also be in Orthodox or CTC teas, but the sizes are smaller to medium. They are generally called super fine dusts, red dusts, pekoe dusts, though there are a number of grads in between.

The quality of tea in color, taste and flavor changes with the method of processing-orthodox or CTC, quality of fermenting black, oolong and green, and size or grades of teas such as leaves and dusts.

HEALTHY CUP OF TEA:

But the tea companies have studied the preferences of tea lovers and present them in special packages. You will like a healthy cup of tea in various ranges. You need to go to the site and select your choice. All are fine and all are tasty when you make the tea in a suggested way.

JUST GO:
LEARN ABOUT A HEALTHY CUP OF TEA: ENJOY BUYING