Today at Revival Tea Academy we're talking about one simple fact which will make you more knowledgable than 99% of the world about tea: oxidation. With all Camellia Sinensis (tea) not herbals such as: Peppermint or Chamomile (not tea). But all tea comes out of the ground looking the same.
There are different tea growing regions, whether it be a Chinese tea or an Indian tea, but all tea comes out of the ground looking really like White Tea (in the video below is our Bai Mu Dan) and it gets picked off of the tea plant. When you look at a tea leaf, straight from the plant, it's going to be wet. The first crucial step is that it needs to be dried. That's why it's called unoxidized or unprocessed. When you move into a Green tea, like Chun Mei (in the video below), it actually looks exactly like our White tea before starting the rolling process. When the leaves are rolled, that starts oxidation. Then it sits for just a couple of hours and then it will get hit it with heat, which ends the oxidation process. You would then move on to a Black tea. The Black tea in the video below was exactly the same as the Green tea, just more oxidized. The Black tea sits anywhere from 5 to 12 hours before hitting it with heat, which stops that oxidation process. Lastly an oolong tea is oxidized between a Green and a Black tea. Just these simple pieces of information will allow you to tell all of your friends a little bit about tea that they may not have known.
Cheers,
Revival Tea Academy