Tea is indigenous to China and northern India. Over the years it has been successfully transplanted and today is grown commercially between the equator and 42 degrees north. The finest teas grow at elevations between 3,000 and 6,000 feet. In areas with no cold season, tea can be plucked every seven to ten days year round. In drier mountainous regions, tea gardens may produce only one flush a year.
An example of the latter can be found in the Uji countryside near Kyoto Japan where Gyokuro (ghee-OH-koo-roe or “ Precious Dew”) is harvested. Three weeks before the harvest, as soon as the first buds appear, the entire garden is covered with bamboo or canvas mats to filter out the light. Tiny emerald leaves grow in the semi darkness yielding higher chlorophyll content hence lower in tannin, resulting in a less bitter tea. Like the rare teas of China, Gyokuro is plucked using the imperial method that removes only the bud and, if quality allows, the first leaf.
Darjeeling
In the northeast Indian region of Darjeeling (between Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan) are sixty one gardens that produce the “champagne” of black teas. Collectively, these gardens produce 15,000 tons of tea annually. A wide range of Darjeeling teas are obtained through skillful blending of the large-leafed plants from Assam with the smaller robust leaves from China. These two main varieties of the species (Camellia sinensis) are sometimes crossbred into hybrids. A wild tea shrub from China can grow six to nine feet tall and lives for about one hundred years. An Assam shrub grows to 60 feet if unpruned, but does not live over 50 years.
Chinese plants are more resistant to cold and are usually found in gardens to the north, often at altitudes above 6,000 feet. To the south, where gardens are located around 1,000 feet, Assam shrubs are more suited to the abundant rainfall.
Although it is difficult to distinguish one garden from its neighbor, one can distinguish a tea harvested in spring (first flush is late February to mid April) from the same tea harvested in early summer (second flush is May to June), or autumn (October to November).
Assam
The valley and state is 120 miles to the east of Darjeeling, on the border of China, Burma, and Bangladesh. It was here on the banks of the Brahmaputra that wild tea shrubs were discovered in 1823, much to the delight of the occupying British.
From April to September during the monsoon season, the temperatures rise to 95° Fahrenheit. This natural greenhouse produces one-third of India’s tea—roughly 200,000 pounds.
Assamese pluckers harvest eight hours a day in tea gardens surrounded by dense jungle. They often wear plastic bags to ward off insects and snakes. An overseer issues the day’s instructions on plots to be worked, and determines assembly and weighing points. The women hoist wicker baskets to their backs, held in place with a forehead strap. Then they advance in platoons into one of Assam’s 2,000 gardens.
Only the youngest, topmost leaves (which extend above the plane known as the “marker”) are harvested, by snapping the stem with the index and middle fingers of both hands.
A “fine plucking” of the best teas removes only the terminal bud on the stem, accompanied by the first two leaves below it. “Coarse plucking” (which includes the bud and as many as the first five leaves) produces common teas usually found in commercial food service outlets selling both hot and iced tea.
A skillful plucker harvests nearly fifty thousand stems per day. Once the basket is full the pluckers return to the assembly point where the leaves are inspected and weighed. Pluckers are paid according to weight and quality.
Ceylon
In contrast to Assam’s thousand acre gardens, Ceylon is comprised of many small estates situated in the south central part of the island. The best gardens are, as always, found at higher altitudes (3-5,000 feet), on the eastern and western slopes of large plateaus. Depending on the direction they face, the gardens are influenced by one of two monsoons. On eastern slopes, they harvest between June to August, while western slopes are harvested from February to mid March.
Once the tea has been inspected and weighed, it goes to the tea factory. The freshly picked leaves undergo a long process of transformation called fermentation. Black tea undergoes five successive stages of fermentation.
- Withering: The leaves are first softened by a withering process that reduces the moisture content to enable the leaves to be rolled without breaking. They are spread in thin layers on wide screens stacked eight inches apart to allow a current of warm air to circulate for roughly 24 hours. Modern tea factories utilize tunnels or vats reducing the withering time to six hours.
- Rolling (maceration): The leaves are rolled to break down the cell walls thus releasing their essentials oils. This was once done by hand but modern factories employ rolling machines with heavy metal disks rotating in opposite directions.
- Sorting: The rolled leaves are placed on long mats to be graded by hand according to size and condition (whole or broken). In the finest gardens, specialty tea leaves are classified according to size and the way they are rolled.
- Fermentation: This process changes the chemical structure of the leaf allowing the color and flavor to emerge. Exposing the leaves to a moist environment (90 percent humidity) and spreading the leaves on large slabs of cement, glass, or aluminum produces the fermentation process. The air temperature is maintained between 72° and 82° Fahrenheit, as a slight increase will cause a burnt taste and a drop will halt fermentation. When maintained at the correct humidity and temperature, the leaf will begin to heat up. It is the responsibility of the tea maker to stop fermentation just as the leaves start to cool. Timing is critical.
- Firing: This is the process that stops fermentation. The leaves are placed in hot pans similar to woks, or in a large dryer on conveyor belts at a constant temperature of 175° Fahrenheit. The leaves turn black and lose all but 3% of their moisture. Timing is critical—too little time results in blistering, mold and spoilage; too long results in loss of flavor and aroma.
China
Tea is still made using ancient methods. Leaves intended for green tea are plucked in the same manner as for black tea. They are then manufactured in three steps, all in one day.
- Panfiring (or steaming): This occurs immediately after the leaves are plucked. They are heated in a pan or steamed in a vat to render them soft and pliable. This exposure to heat kills the fermentation process.
- Rolling: The tea is kneaded by fingers, palm and forearm, stacked in small piles and dried for ten hours. During this stage it is regularly rolled.
- Firing: Fired green tea retains about two percent of its moisture. The process takes place in large mechanical dryers.
- Grading: Tea is then rolled according to the desired grade and then sorted.
Grading
- Gunpowder
- leaves rolled into tiny balls one to three centimeters in diameter
- Chun-Mee
- leaves rolled to one centimeter
- Sencha
- whole unrolled leaves
- Matcha
- powered tea used in tea ceremonies
Formosa
Tea is harvested and produced in small family gardens using artisanial methods. Producing a semi-fermented tea called Oolong (Black Dragon). Its taste and liquor are half way between black and green.
Withering and a little fermentation are combined for four to five hours in direct sunlight. The leaves are spread three or four inches deep in bamboo baskets and shaken frequently to bruise the leaf, making the leaf edges oxidize faster then the center. This stage is halted when the leaves begin to smell like apples, orchids or peaches. Firing halts fermentation when it is about half complete. Baskets filled with leaves are moved in and out of an open fire.
Japan
Tea gardens in Japan are unlike any others in the world. This is due to the way the shrubs are planted and pruned; they are not spaced apart as elsewhere, but are placed side by side to form tight strips some thirty feet long. This uniform and slightly curved surface forms a large plucking table. Japan produces only green teas, known as O-Cha.
