There is a Lot to Know about Green Tea...Here's A Condensed Overview...
What Makes Green Tea So Special?...
If you are a green tea lover, you are probably enthralled with its health benefits and captivating aromas and tastes. If you have an interest in enjoying its advantages but don't know much about it yet, you may like a better understanding of what makes green tea all that it is.
True enough, many people new to this kind of tea become interested because of what they have heard about the health benefits of drinking it...
For me, this was the case. It was the intrigue of the Fountain of Youth sounding Antioxidants that first drew me to green tea, and several years later, I'm glad to have heard that message early on in my life.
Over time, the message for me has changed some...it has actually doubled...
It didn't take long for me to realize there were two important things about drinking tea... While the health benefits have always remained the most compelling reason to drink green tea daily, I quickly discovered the pleasure of consuming it...the characters of these teas can be amazing...
Within days of experiencing well-steeped, quality green tea came the realization that the health benefits, as valuable as they were to me, were pleasantly pushed into second place by the elation of discovering their character.
Uncovering the nuances imparted by unique growing locations, conditions, and processing techniques was an unanticipated delight that made green tea a wise, healthy choice and a life embellishment.
Knowing about tea increases our enjoyment through appreciation of where it came from and how it made its way into our cups.
For those who have struggled to steep tea to their liking, please see our Steeping Perfection tips.
Mother Nature does the hard work....
Young shoots growing on tea plants in varying conditions develop through photosynthesis. Energy from the sun combines with nutrients from the earth and the DNA of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis.
During this time, particularly in the spring, there is an abundance of high-value ingredients forming within the emerging bud...soon to unfurl into a tealeaf.
These ingredients not only bring us the highly desired health advantages, but they also offer an opportunity for the innovative tea producer to turn into blissful cups of tea.
At the moment of plucking, things instantly change for the tealeaf...
As it grows, the tea leaf develops a molecular structure, and cells are formed within the leaf. At the moment of the leaf harvest, the growth process shifts chemically to a process biologists call catabolic.
For us tea drinkers, this means the tealeaf enters a change stage that physically and chemically begins to affect the nature of the tealeaves and the type of tea they might become.
A great deal of the change that will happen to the newly harvested tealeaf is Oxidation...the process that turns an apple brown after we bite it.
Green tea is characterized as unoxidized...
Green tea is considered unoxidized, while black tea is considered fully oxidized.
Once the leaf is harvested, unless something is done to prevent it, oxidation will naturally occur...this will turn the leaf into black tea...
Oxidation is arrested by applying heat to the leaves early in their processing to halt enzyme action that would accelerate oxidation.
More on the Differences in Tea Types...
The method of applying heat to arrest oxidation in tea leaves is a combination of both science and art...
This is where the technique for manipulating the tealeaf comes in, including the step tea processors call de-enzyming.
Man has developed techniques to not only arrest the oxidation of tealeaves, preserving them in their unoxidized state, but also to impart aroma and taste nuances to the teas, giving them unique identities.
By adjusting de-enzyming techniques, combining them with the unique plant material and finishing techniques like basket firing, a wide selection of Artisan teas awaits our discovery.
The joy is in the plethora of processing techniques developed over generations of tea producers in the villages of renowned tea regions...science + art.
Read more about enzymatic activity in tea...
The pleasant surprise for many new to quality Artisan green teas is the array...the delightful variety available...
Okabe Gyokuro
Best Monkey (Tai Ping Huo Kui)
King of Pearl (Mo Li Zhu Cha) Jasmine Green
The great variety of teas available is lucky for us tea drinkers, but also tricky because of the quality range.
At Drink Great Tea, our challenge as tea purveyors is to match authentic, high-quality teas with a reasonable price point.
We pride ourselves in this work, along with the care given to the transportation and preservation of our teas, always keeping in mind the customer experience.
The take-away thought...
While high-quality green tea provides us a beverage with benefits like immunity, cognitive and neurological health, prevention of auto-immune diseases, and good alkalinity, the bonus for so many tea drinkers is the pleasant cup character and the variety of cup nuances available to us...the joy of drinking green tea.