Over five million tons of tea are produced worldwide every year. Whereas the Germans are still beginners in tea drinking. According to statistics from the German Tea Association, German citizens drank just 19.2 tons in 2016, or 28 liters per capita. By contrast, Europe’s most avid tea drinkers, the British, manage around 200. Only the East Frisians manage more: 300 liters. This puts them around 120 liters ahead of the Irish, who are known as tea lovers. The leaves in Germany cannot hold a candle to their competitor, coffee, but that is not the tea drinker’s concern: he takes time for his favorite beverage, brews the leaves according to the recommendation, carefully selects his tableware – and enjoys.
The history of tea
A good one-fifth of tea leaves come from India, the world’s second largest supplier of tea. China, where the beverage was first discovered and has been drunk for about 5,000 years, ranks first and also supplies the greatest variety of tea. The fact that tea was grown in India at all was an idea of the English; originally, no tea plants grew in India. The British had acquired a taste for tea in China and Japan and did not want to miss the beverage at home.
So from the middle of the 17th century, they shipped the coveted leaves from East Asia to Europe. The damp, musty air in the holds and extreme climate changes en route affected the aroma of the tea. In addition, the voyage could take up to a year in bad winds, which made the cargo very expensive.
In addition, when trade with China became difficult in the early 19th century, the British tried to grow tea plants in their then colony of India. The plant thrived on the slopes of the Himalayas, and the Suez Canal and faster ships shortened the journey: Tea became the English – and Indian – national drink.
Over time, crossbreeding gave breeders more robust plants that now thrive in less ideal tea-growing regions, such as Indonesia, Turkey and parts of Africa.
Green or black?
Whether tea is black or green depends not on the variety, but on how it is processed:
- Fresh leaves are hung to wilt after picking, which causes them to lose moisture but not dry completely.
- Then they come under a circular press that breaks the cell walls of the leaves, so that cell juice escapes and comes into contact with air.
- The contact with the oxygen in the air then starts the fermentation. This removes bitter substances from the leaves and makes them durable. At the same time, they change color and become dark brown to black.
Green tea, on the other hand, is not fermented, but steamed and then dried. Even the white tea, which has only been available for a relatively short time under various trade names, is not fermented. To obtain the substance for this particularly mild drink, the tea gardeners use very young, still unopened leaf buds of certain varieties and dry each leaf individually in the air.
White tea
“White” it is called because the young leaves are covered with a delicate white down. It remains quite bright even in the cup and does not resent long steeping. Its devotees rave about its quite exquisite aroma – but those who usually drink a strong black Assam will probably be disappointed at first by the delicate taste of the white tea.
