COMMUNITEA BOOKS TEAHOUSE

Communitea Books Teahouse

According to legend tea was discovered nearly 5,000 years ago, 2732 B.C. in China when leaves from a wild tree blew into the boiling water pot of Emperor Shen Nung, the pleasant sent and proceeding brew intrigued him and he drank some...

The vast majority of tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, with the only notable exceptions being Mate and some Herbal Teas. The different types of tea are produced by altering the shape or the chemistry of the tea leaf, a process known as 'processing.'

There are five steps for the processing of tea, though not all teas go through all five steps and some will go through a single process multiple times. Processing includes:

Plucking
Withering (allowing the leaves to soften)
Rolling (shaping, and removing any liquids)
Oxidizing (the most important aspect, oxidation occurs when the enzymes in the tea leaf interact with oxygen)
Firing (or drying)