HomeOver a billion people drink black tea every day, but only a few know the secrets of this iconic drink. What makes black tea different from green tea? How and where is it made around the world? In this blog, we’re going to cover all that and more as we dive into the most popular type of tea in the world. We’ll cover the health benefits flavor and brewing technique of black tea so you can become a pro in just ten minutes. But first, what is black tea? All true teas come from the same plant. Camellia sinensis, but they’re broken up into six categories, white tea, green tea, yellow tea, oblong tea, black tea, and dark tea. These categories are determined by how the tea is processed after it’s harvested. Later in the blog, we’ll walk you through the steps used to make black tea, but the most important thing to know for now is that black tea is oxidized while green tea is unoxidized. When the tea leaf is picked, it will start to oxidize as the stem is exposed to oxygen. Eventually this will cause the leaf to fade from green to brown and the chemistry will be completely transformed. The polyphenols in the leaf responsible for these fresh vegetable flavors will be broken down into theo flavius and theaubicins. These compounds produce the warmer, more caramel flavors of black tea. If you drink a cup of good black tea, it’s astounding to know that all the flavors were produced by a leaf. Black tea can be chocolate, as in the case of Dienhong or Union black tea. It can also be fruity caramel, earthy, or even minty. All these flavors come not from adding other ingredients but by manipulating the leaf itself. The thea, flavius and theiaubicins are also a form of tannin, so they can produce a slight bitterness in the black tea and a hint of acidity. This is likely the flavor you’re all too familiar with if you’re used to drinking black tea bags. But as we’ll explore later on in the blog, there’s so much more to black tea than that, but almost as impressive as the flavor are the health benefits of black tea. Remember those Thea Flavius from earlier. These have been associated with a lower cardiovascular risk in several population studies and what about the theorubicins. These can act as probiotics, helping beneficial gut bacteria grow while limiting harmful strains. Because these polyphenols are larger, they make their way further in the digestive tract. Despite these impressive benefits, green tea is known as the healthy tea and there are a few reasons for this. Because green tea is unoxidized, it retains more of its catkins, which are the principal antioxidant in tea leaves. These antioxidants have shown promising results in everything from weight loss to cold and flu prevention. Green teas, especially shaded Japanese teas like gurro, are also higher in thein, an amino acid responsible for that calm. Alert energy tea drinkers report having. Ltheine is also believed to stimulate alpha brainwave activity the same brainwave stimulated during meditation and when you achieve a flow state while working. The ltheine is reduced during the oxidation process, so it’s found in much higher concentrations in green tea than in black tea. If you want to see what a big difference altheine makes in terms of energy levels, you can try some of the best yookudo we found around Japan by visiting our website neos. Dot. Com. But how is this oxidized tea actually made? Black tea begins its life just like any other type of tea as leaves on the tea plant. How the leaves are picked will determine the type of black tea that is produced. The young sprouts on the top of the tea plant are the richest in nutrients and the sweetest in flavor, so these are the most desirable. A black tea made from these leaves can be naturally sweet, fruity, or chocolate. This would be a black tea like Dian hong or golden tips. You really wouldn’t want to add milk to this tea because then you would miss out on all the subtle flavors. To produce a Massmarke tea bag tea, the pickers will select older tea leaves. These are bolder, maier, and more bitter. These strong flavors are best paired with milk and they have become a staple across the world. These can be either handpicked or machine picked. To maximize the quantity for the less expensive black teas, they will use the Cut Tear curl or CTC method, which mechanically breaks the leaves into small uniform particles that brew quickly and produce a strong brisk base. Contrast that with the orthodox method used to produce premium black teas like Kinmen. Dianhong, or Jinan may, which keeps the leaves intact and preserves their natural essential oils until they’re ready to be infused. Once the leaves are harvested, they need to be withered to reduce the moisture content. The leaves need to be laid out so they can dry and become pliable for the next stage. Once the moisture content has been reduced and the leaves are pliable, they go through a rolling stage. This bruises the leaves to break down the cell walls and expose the leaf to oxygen. Next, the leaves are left in a human environment to speed up the oxidation. This is where the magic happens as the catkins are converted into Theo. Flavius and Theiaubicins. The tea trades these fresh, grassy flavor profiles for warmer notes of coffee, caramel and chocolate. By the way if you want a full breakdown of this production process you can read the full Black T-one 100 and one guide on our website neots. Dot. Com. We dive into even more topics that we don’t have time to cover in a single youtube blog. So if you like black tea, you won’t want to miss it. So now that we have the oxidized leaves, it’s time to dry them. The leaves are heated at of high heat in order to reduce the moisture even further and preserve the rich multi flavors of the tea. The fresh leaves start out with a moisture content of 80 percent and by the time they’re done they’re at four to seven percent moisture. The dried leaves are now ready to be infused into water, but they need to be sorted and grated first. The larger leaves will be used to make premium loose leaf teas, while the broken leaves and dust will be used in tea bags. These loose leafaf teas can be brewed in a teapot or a guywan, and the real tea lovers wouldn’t dream of adding milk to them. If these black teas are produced right, they can have a rich, complex flavor and very little bitterness, almost like a fine wine. But black tea is a rich history and it all begins in this little village of Tongmu, deep in the Wui Mountains. Prior to the 1500 S. Chinese tea culture was dominated by green and lightly processed teas. As the legend goes, in the late Ming dynasty around 1600, soldiers were moving through this area and it created panic amongst the villagers. They felt they didn’t have time for the long heating and drying processes used to make green tea and instead just dry the leaves quickly next to a pinewood fire. This allowed the leaves to oxidize more than usual and created the world’s first documented black tea. Laps, sayingusha. This fully oxidized tea traveled much better than green tea, which was extremely important in the 1600 s. When the world became defined by sea trade, the Dutch and British traders could buy this black teat ports and bring it back to Europe. The flavor state consistent even on longs voyages and Europeans began to fall in love with the strong, bold flavors of black tea from China. But tensions between China and the British Empire began to grow and in the 1800 s. Britain began to look for an alternative to Chinese tea who at this point held a monopoly on tea. Through a series of events involving wars, espionage and colonization, the British had successfully set up tea plantations in India. This led to the establishment of massive tea- growinging operations in Issamm and Darjilli. Permanently reshaping the global tea industry and ensuring that black tea would become the most widely consumed tea style in the world. India has now become the largest producer of black tea in the world. Although China produces more tea overall, a majority of it is green tea. Kenya the third largest producer overall produces eight percent of the world’s tea and almost all of that is black tea. Sri Lanka comes in a close 4th place and virtually all of their tea output is devoted to black tea. So as you can see, with the exception of China, the largest tea producers in the world almost exclusively produce black tea to keep up with the massive demand for this beverage. Japan is far behind these heavy hitters when it comes to volume, but when it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. When visiting farmers in Japan and searching for the best green tea for neot’s.com, we occasionally come across a wakocha, or Japanese black tea. This is exceedingly rare in Japan, making up only zero 0.6 percent of the country’s total tea production. Producers in Japan focus on these fresh steam, vegetable or seaweed flavors you find in a tea like yourdo. But if you do find a Japanese black tea, chances are it will be quite good with lighter floral and fruity notes. When we were visiting farmers in Shizuoka, they took us to their black tea facility, which was actually shared by a few other farmers in the area. Black tea is so rare in Japan, very few farmers actually have their own dedicated facility and they have to share with others. This additional step makes waakocha quite expensive compared to even a top shelf setia. But we’ve talked a lot about the health benefits and flavors in a black tea. Now let’s show you how to actually brew it, Before we get to that if you’re enjoying this blog so far, it would really mean a lot to us. If you could like this blog and subscribe to see more like it in the future, we just checked and 77 percent of you guys are not subscribed, which is really too bad because we’re going to be covering a ton of interesting topics this year that we’ve never talked about before on this Website. Please make sure you also sign up for notifications, so you don’t miss our next tea episode now let’s get brewing. So black tea can stand up to higher temperatures compared to green tea because it has less of these bitter catkins. This means that you can use 95 degrees Celsius or 200 and five degrees Fahrenheit water to prepare the tea. How much leaf you use depends on what type of brewing style you want. If you want to make a large pot of tea, you can use a Western- style brewing method with four grams of leaves and 500 miters of water, brew the tea for about two to three minutes, and then remove the leaves to stop the infusion. You can then reinfuse these leaves two to three more times until they lose flavor. If you want to use the Gong Fu method and enjoy a richer, more high-definition brew, you can use five grams of leaves and 100 milliters of water. For this, you’ll want to use a smaller vessel like a Guiwan or a small clay pot. Let the teabrew for 20 seconds on the first infusion and then add five seconds to that brewing for each subsequent infusion. When you’re using this method, you can brew these leaves at least eight times before they lose flavor, and each cup will be slightly different. The first infusion will be lighter and more aromatic, and later infusions will be more bold and earthy. So black tea is a remarkable drink that has gone on to conquer the world. It’s hard to believe that this complex cocktail of fruity floral chocolate and caramel flavors all come from a single leaf. We hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through black tea. If you want to learn about other teas like Green tea, we would really appreciate it if you could subscribe and check out some of our other T blogs. If you want to try all the best teas we found during our travels around Japan, you can visit our website buyontheway.com. Thank you all so much for reading. We’ll see you next time.
