Despite there being thousands of iterations of tea, they surprisingly all come from the same plant: camellia sinensis. What makes tea special or unique is how it is processed. Your black, yellow, green, and white teas don’t come from plants of the same colour; instead, they come from the processing.
One of the most popular tea choices is black tea, which South Asian countries are especially good at making. All black teas come from a specific process of withering and oxidation, which darkens the leaves and draws out the specific flavour and aroma.
The distinct flavour of black tea makes it a favourite with afternoon tea; what’s more, you don’t need to travel to enjoy it. You can find afternoon tea box delivery online from companies such as www.afternoonteabox.com/.
Of course, black tea is not the only tea with a specific process behind it, but let’s focus on the specifics of black tea processing:
Withering
Those beautiful green tea leaves we start out with unfortunately have to wither away to begin our black tea-making process. This typically takes around 14 hours, with factories reducing moisture in the leaves – around 65% to 70% – in quick, large-scale processing using fans of warm air to achieve the desired moisture level.
Rolling
After the leaves have grown soft enough, they are put into a rolling machine for around half an hour. This process releases the enzymes and essential oils that begin the vital chemical reactions in the leaves.
Oxidation
This is where the biggest visual change happens, as the leaves gradually change from green to black, with the oxidation process also producing the distinct aroma and flavour of black tea.
Drying
Finally, the leaves are dried out in an oven for around half an hour. This stops the oxidation and finishes the processing. Next, a tea maker will inspect the samples, extracting precise 2g samples from various sections of the batch. These are boiled, strained, and tasted. If they pass the tea maker’s test, they are sent off to be enjoyed by everyone else.
