Month: May 2014

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A history of tea – China

Tea is steeped in history 🙂

It is one of the oldest beverages on the planet and is deeply rooted within cultures around the world.  It is the most widely drunk beverage in the world and its journey is still going strong.

Let’s take a look at where it all began.

Although we Brits like to think that tea began with us, it goes back much further.  Before 2000BC, the story goes that the Chinese emperor was in a field and a boiling pot of water was being prepared nearby.  A leaf (a tea leaf) fell into the pot and the emperor decided to try this infusion.  And this is how it is believed that the drink, tea, was created.  Whether or not, you believe this story containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han dynasty(206 BC – 220 AD) but it was under the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD) that tea become known as a national drink. 

By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) tea was the national drink of China,  and was widespread throughout the court circles of the day and during this time tea was sent to the emperor’s court to honour him.

Tea was manufactured in brick form at this time: the tea leaves were pounded and pressed into a brick-shaped mold, then dried.   In order to prepare the tea, part of the brick was ground down, and the result was boiled in water.  During the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD), powdered tea was developed from green tea leaves, and boiled water was poured onto the powder and left to brew and then whisked into a frothy tea.  Tea was introduced to Japan at this time which is why this method of tea preparation is the basis of the tea ceremony and the most traditional way of drinking tea in Japan.

Japan’s history with tea will be the next history blog post and we’ll carry on our story there…

 

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TGFOP, WTF?

After becoming interested in tea and expanding my horizons with more unusual types of loose leaf teas, I inevitably came across teas that were labelled TGFOP and started seeing things like Pekoe written in descriptions.  I had to go out and find out what all these letters meant and so here is a rundown of the letters and what they stand for.  In basic terms, the letters are used to describe the quality of the tea which has been picked.

A tea which has the letters TGFOP on it is the top grade and stand for “Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe”.  During harvesting the top two leaves and bud are plucked by hand.  The bud is actually the immature leaf tip which has not yet fully opened.  When harvested during the slow growth periods, these young buds have a golden tip, hence the grade ‘Flowery’.  When these tips are in abundance the terms ‘Tippy and Golden’ are added.

The letter ‘F’ may appear before the TGFOP to represent a ‘finer’ grade and the letters ‘SF’ to show a grade of ‘super fine.’  Thus a tea graded as ‘SFTGFOP’ is a Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. 

GFOP or “Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe”, is more of a mid-range grade and has noticeably smaller leaves compared to FTGFOP. 

FOP or “Flowery Orange Pekoe”, is the next grade down, a common and fair quality loose leaf tea grade.

After that we have OP which stands for “Orange Pekoe” which is a whole leaf tea showing no tip, and when sifted after firing, will not pass through a certain designated sieve size. These leaves are usually of uniform size and rolled lengthwise.

The next grade below Orange Pekoe is called Broken Orange Pekoe BOP which signifies a broken leaf.  Tippy, golden, and flowery, or a combination of these terms may also be applied to this size of leaf.  Thus a grade of ‘TGBOP’ is a Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe tea.  The letter ‘I’ for Imperial may also appear after BOP and designates a size which is smaller than whole leaf (OP) grade but larger than most of the BOP grades.

The lowest grade of tea available is the PD, Pekoe Dust if produced by CTC (crush, tear, curl) method of manufacturing, and called ‘Dust’ if produced by the Orthodox Method.  This is the smallest broken pieces left after siftings, sometimes called the ‘sweepings’ and are literally the bottom of the barrel when it comes to tea.  By this point they have been broken up so much, all the natural oils have left the leaves and dried up, leaving little room for flavour.  One of the reasons why loose leaf tea is full of flavour in comparison to tea-bagged tea is due to this.

Glossary of tea

I thought I would do a post about the all the words that you find in the world of tea but which mean diddly squat to the majority of people.  As I had to look these terms up as I journeyed into the world of tea, I thought it would be a good blog post to help people make sense of all the tannins and flushes that crop up in tea descriptions.

So here’s what everyone’s talking about:

Tannins – natural chemical based compounds found in tea leaves that have antioxidant qualities. These antioxidants help prevent damage to the cells in our bodies and strengthen our immune system. 

Catechins – a subgroup of polyphenols (tannins) in tea is called catechins and one of the most powerful catechins in tea, especially green tea, is called EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) which is said to be a particularly strong antioxidant.

Antioxidant – an antioxidant is a compound, which retards oxidation. In the body antioxidants can ‘soak up’ free radicals.

Free radical – Free radicals are unstable substances which can disrupt biochemical processes in the body and have been implicated in cancer and heart disease.

Estate – the plantation where the tea leaves were grown.

Vintage – the leaves are produced from one harvest and are not blended with any others.

Flush – the time of year when the tea is picked.  There are usually four flushes, known as Easter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, although Easter flush is more commonly known as first flush and Spring as second flush.

First flush – the tea leaves were picked in the first growth of the season.  This tends to produce a very light delicate drink.

Second flush – the leaves were picked in the second growth of the season and therefore produces a more robust harvest.

Autumnal flush – leaves are harvested after the rainy season.

Darjeeling – the name given to teas grown and harvested in the Darjeeling area of West Bengal, India.

Oolong – a type of tea produced through a unique process including withering under the strong sun and oxidation before curling and twisting

Rooibos –  meaning “red bush”.  Comes from a plant and is a broom-like member of the legume family of plants growing in South Africa.  Not technically tea, but brewed like a tea.

Tisane (herbal tea/infusions) – a beverage made from the infusion of herbs, spices, or other plant material in hot water, and usually does not contain any tea leaves or caffeine.

Natural flavourings – flavoring substances obtained from plant or animal raw materials, these are then sprayed onto the tea leaves to give a flavour to the tea.

 

There is a wealth of information about tea online.  A good place to start is the UK Tea Council website where you can read up on more tea info & facts and the health benefits associated with tea.