Fun and FlirTea

Next to black tea, green tea is a more recognizable tea in Western society. A lot of this derives from the health benefits that are touted of green teas. In fact, most scientific studies into the health benefits of tea utilize green tea as the focus. As a result, green tea drinking in the Western world has really been on the rise in recent years.

Of course, green tea is one of the most commonly consumed teas in China and Japan. From my own observations in China, nearly everyone walking around town would be touting a bottle of some sort filled with green tea (with the leaves visible in the bottle, no less). And if I went to a restaurant or cafe and requested tea, it would almost exclusively be green tea unless I requested something else in particular.

I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been much of a fan of green tea over the years. I always had a hard time getting past the distinctive grassy, oceany, vegetal flavor that is so common in green teas. Recently, I’ve come to appreciate this kind of flavor more, but I’m still in the beginning stages of coming to terms with it, if you will. It’s the other flavor profiles found in various green teas that have begun to hook me – an occasional nuttiness, bright crispness, and fresh sweet flavors.

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“All there is to making tea is to pick it, steam it, pound it, shape it, dry it, tie it and seal it.”
    -Lu Yu, The Classic of Tea

The first time I read that sentence, I started cracking up. It implies that making tea is a simple process, then contradicts itself immediately with the number of steps involved (few of which are easily or quickly explained). Making tea is clearly a process. There are multiple steps to follow and, depending on your intended outcome, they must be performed in specific orders and some steps may even be repeated.

This is an excerpt from the first ever book on tea, called the Ch’a Ching, or The Classic of Tea. Written in the eight century (yes, that means in the 700’s AD), it’s remarkable how little has changed regarding the growing, plucking, and manufacture of (orthodox) teas. To be fair, the process described by Lu Yu above is no longer exactly right, so I’ll take a little time to talk to you about how tea is made today.

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