Tea 101: Terminology of Tea

I apologize for the lack of photos. My cell camera does the content no justice, and as soon as I get a decent camera I will update this with tons of visual aides.

Maybe you've recently visited a friend who served you delicious tea, and you were inspired to get some yourself. Or, perhaps you heard about the health benefits and want to give it a try. Maybe your doctor told you to cut back on caffeine and sugar. Whatever the reason, you find yourself in the tea section at the supermarket, and completely overwhelmed. You're realizing that "tea is tea" is not true the way "a saltine is a saltine."

There is a wall before you with countless brands--Bigelow, Lipton, Republic of Tea, Tazo, Celestial Seasonings, Adagio and Yogi--just to name a few. There's caffeinated and decaffeinated; organic and fair trade; additives and health-specific "cures." There's unflavored (though no tea is truly unflavored) and flavored, ranging from spicy, floral, fruity, grassy, herbal to nutty. Colors of tea--black, green, red, and white, plus herbal infusions and things called oolong, rooibos, tisanes and matés. Then you have to pick a style of packaging: flat or pyramid bags? With tags or without? Loose leaf, compressed, or, more recently, instant? (because "add hot water" was apparently too hard..?)

WOW. Where do you start? What do the different colors mean? Does the packaging style or brand matter? Should you even buy from a supermarket, or go to a specialized tea store? What does ayurvedic mean? Which ones are healthiest? Do they even taste good?

OK, now slow down and take a breath. Before you start concerning yourself with deeper details, decisions and preparations, it would be wise to understand the basic terminology of "tea" so you can make an informed decision.

Americans have combined many different terms under the umbrella word "tea," so those in the tea industry have adopted foreign tea-related words to further categorize this vast subject. The misnomer of "tea" to drinks which are NOT tea, has caused a lot of confusion. For example "pregnant women and young children can't drink tea." While it's correct, they should stay away from tea, it is perfectly fine for a pregnant woman, a child, or even an infant to drink certain tisanes. Unfortunately, most people do not know the difference.

Tea - any dried leaves and leaf buds coming from the Camellia sinensis plant. If it is not from this plant, it is not tea. Tea has a distinct, slightly bitter flavor with varying levels of astringency, and comes in five basic varieties. The differences between each variety is caused by three main things:

1. Where the tea is grown
2. How and at what time of year the leaves and buds are harvested
3. By its level of oxidation (chemical changes within the leaf itself), caused by various methods and amounts of processing

• To summarize a long explanation of several oxidation processes: tea leaves are picked manually or by machine then dried indoors or out. Some teas require further processing to create the desired flavor--they can be bruised or crushed, then fermented before fixation. Fixation causes the leaves to stop oxidizing at a desired point, via steaming or pan searing. After fixation, leaves are rolled into the shape you will receive it, ei. strips, balls or pellets, and then dried via baking, sunning or air drying.
• Special teas may require additional fermenting, aging, or even spraying with a bacterial culture to add unique properties.

Varying factors and methods will give you one of the following types of tea:

• Black - 100% oxidized; strongest flavor; most caffeine; least antioxidants; most astringent; brews a reddish/amber to dark brown hue; gets its name from color of dried leaves.
• Oolong - Between black and green teas' oxidation levels; after wilting, oxidation of is controlled at the discretion of each plantation's Tea Master, a process usually of only a few hours, followed by twisting/curling and drying; less caffeine than black and green; appetite control; metabolism booster; brews a grey-blue to light brown hue.
• Green - least amount of oxidation; Chinese harvest and immediately pan fire whole leaves; Japanese use Cut-Tear-Curl method resulting in smaller leaves, followed immediately by steaming; caffeine between oolong and black; boosts metabolism; diuretic; highest level of flavanoids; brews a yellow-green hue.
• Yellow - similar to green tea, yellow is pan fired or steamed immediately after picking; post fixation damp leaves are further heated for several hours, turning them yellow and uniquely changing the internal structure of the leaf; distinct, bold flavor often confused for black tea.
• White - picked, wilted, occasionally shaped, then dried; highest level of antioxidants; least amount of caffeine; brews light yellow/amber to nearly clear.
• Red - this infusion is not tea, and will be discussed later.

Any plant byproduct not originating from Camellia sinensis whose resulting liquid can be consumed after steeping. Variety of examples:

• Bark - birch, lapacho, slippery elm
  
• Flower - chamomile, hibiscus, lavender, rose
  
• Fruit - blueberry, cherry, mango, orange
• Grain - buckwheat, corn, rice
• Herb - echinacea, fennel, lemongrass
• Leaf - honeybush, nettle, mint, raspberry
• Needles - pine, rooibos, spruce
• Nut - almond, hazelnut, pecan
• Oil - bergamot, lemon myrtle
• Root - ginger, licorice, yukka
• Seed - anise, cardamom, poppy
• Spice - cinnamon, clove, saffron

Prounnced (tiss-AHN), a French word literally meaning "tea," in America it has come to refer to any herbal infusion not containing Camellia sinensis.

Ingredients: 100% hibiscus flowers.

• Correct: Hibiscus Tisane, Hibiscus Herbal Tisane
• Common: Hibiscus Herbal Tea

Ingredients: Green tea, hibiscus.

• Correct and Common: Hibiscus Green Tea

Ingredients: White tea, green tea, orange leaves, rose hips, lemon grass, licorice root, modified corn starch, natural flavor.

• Correct: Citrus Tea Blend with licorice root.
• Lipton: White Tea with Island Mango and Peach Flavors
• Note: A simply-labeled tea will often contain several other ingredients, likewise a long-labeled tea (like Lipton's) may not always contain what you'd expect.

Obviously a very literal method of description is not always helpful or relative when shopping as companies use easy to find or inventive names for marketing purposes. It is, however, very useful when trying to find a tea comparable to one you tasted elsewhere, perhaps someone's house, abroad, or remembered from childhood. Tea names will vary from company to company and change with time, so knowing the ingredients is the surest way to finding a match.

Chai - Indian word literally meaning "tea."

• Though varying from region to region, In India "masala chai" refers to a heavily spiced and sweetened (usually black) tea that is prepared by continuously boiling the concoction, often for hours, in milk and water.
• In American pop culture, chai is commonly associated with the spicy/sweet Starbucks invention, which is prepared quickly, predominantly of water, syrups and/or spices, with a small amount of frothed milk added at the end.
• In American tea culture, chai refers to a tea of any color containing various mixtures of: cardamom, ginger, fennel, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, pepper, saffron, nutmeg, and/or licorice root.

Cha - Chinese word meaning "tea," can be used in American culture to denote chai, or simply to give a fancy name to a tea by giving it a foreign-sounding name. For example, one of my favorite teas is called Genmaicha, which is phonetic Chinese--Gen mai cha--meaning "green rice tea."

Pronounced "ROY-boss" and literally meaning "red bush," Aspalathus linearis is part of the legume family (that's right, like peas) and grown exclusively in South Africa. Often marketed in the States as "red tea," rooibos is not Camellia sinensis and, therefore, is not tea.

• Prepared in the same manner as tea and tisanes, rooibos gets it's name from the red color of its steeped liquid. Its flavor is nothing like tea, being naturally earthy, mildly sweet, and occasionally nutty.
• Even though it falls under the herbal category, it is most often referred to as rooibos or redbush, or red tea. There are so many amazing flavors to be created with a rooibos base that it definitely deserves its own category.

Native to South America, Ilex paraguariensis is a species of holly.

• Though it can be prepared in the same manner as tea, the manner of traditionally preparing and drinking maté is a topic unto itself.
• Its undoctored flavor is rather vegetal and grassy.
• In addition to all the many large-worded health benefits of tea, an infusion of yerba maté contains eight different vitamins, eight different minerals and 15 Amino acids.
• Maté contains three different xanthines (aka alkaloids, aka chemical compounds), which are natural stimulants: caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline.
• Maté's stimulants are absorbed differently than that of other plants, affecting the muscular system instead of the central nervous system. The result is energy and alertness without jitters, shakes, or crashes.

Ayurvedic - a form of holistic medicine originating in India, emphasizing (among other things) diet and herbal remedies. Ayurvedic teas are most commonly tisanes.

• You can spot the ayurvedic teas as they advertise remedies for a host of problems, from individual ailments--cramps, indigestion, sore throats and inability to sleep--to broader uses, such as overall female well-being, immune support, etc.
• Beneficial properties can be found in nearly any tea or tisane. Specifically labelled ayurvedics just make it easier to target what you are looking for, as opposed to pouring over ingredient lists.

Steep/Brew - to immerse in liquid to extract components

Fannings - essentially the "chaff" of tea, fannings are the dust that falls from larger tea and herbal elements. Chaff is found in the vast majority of store-brand bagged teas. While convenient in many ways--handling, not as sensitive to heat or over-brewing, disposal and portability--these teas often lack the robust and intricate flavors, and many of the health properties, of full leaf teas. The quality and flavors may be distorted due to over-oxidization resulting from the greater amount of surface area exposed to the particles.

Pyramids - many manufactures are now packing slightly larger-leafed teas in pyramid form, as opposed to the standard flat bag, to allow for fuller expansion of the leaves and therefore better brewing, flavor, and overall quality.

Decaffeinated - tea can be decaffeinated via water treatment or CO₂ pressure cooking. Trace amounts of caffeine will still remain, but usually only around 2.5% of the original amount. Decaffeinating with water can be done at home.

Caffeine Free - naturally lacking caffeine.

Compressed Tea - blocks of finely ground black, green or post-fermented tea pressed into blocks, nests or other molds. Example: Pu-Erh

Instant Tea - highly concentrated tea product, often containing additives, to be used with machines to produce a relatively hands-free, quick beverage. Another option is a dried, powdered packet of tea leaves which you add to water then stir. I do not recommend these at all, they are not nearly as healthy or flavorful as any kind of brew-it-yourself tea, often needing sugar and other additives to provide flavor.