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A Beginner’s Guide to Tea

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By Randy Jackson

For many years, I’ve been as addicted and habituated as anyone to coffee in this Western coffee culture. Recently, however, I’ve found myself drawn to the more gentle allure of tea over coffee’s bold kick. I began this transition without realizing just how deep and rich the world of tea truly is, steeped in centuries of tradition and boasting a great many varieties. So, for beginners to tea, I’ve formulated four key questions and their answers to provide a foundational understanding of the world’s most consumed beverage.

WHAT PLANT DOES TEA COME FROM?

All non-herbal teas come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The history of using the leaves from this plant to make tea dates back at least to the third century CE in China. The variety of teas from the plant arises from how the leaves are processed.

Green tea is made by steaming and drying the leaves. Green tea has a delicate flavor. It has about 37% as much caffeine as coffee.

Black Tea is the most popular type of tea, with the most familiar names for teas, such as Darjeeling, English Breakfast, and Chai. Black tea is made by fermenting the leaves (oxidization). Black tea has a robust, relatively strong flavor compared to other teas. A cup of black tea generally contains about 58% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee.

Oolong Tea is partially oxidized and has a less intense flavor than black tea. Its flavor is more complex than black or green tea. The caffeine level of Oolong tea is about 42% of that of coffee.

White Tea is made from naturally dried leaves, with no oxidization. White tea has a delicate flavor. The caffeine contained in white tea is about 26% of that of coffee.

Pu-erh Tea is made using a microbial fermentation process and aging. It generally has an earthy and rich flavor. The caffeine level of Pu-erh tea is about 53% of that of coffee.

Matcha is a powdered version of green tea. The tea plants are kept in the shade for three weeks prior to harvesting. It has a slightly grassy, vegetal taste. Matcha contains the most caffeine of all the teas, about 74% of the amount in coffee.

HOW DO TEA FLAVORS VARY?

In addition to the different flavors of the teas listed above, the flavor of tea is affected by where the tea plant is grown. Like wine, the climate, elevation, and soil produce a range of flavors in tea. For example, Darjeeling tea is often called the champagne of tea because the soil in the Darjeeling area of India produces a delicate and fruity tea.

Furthermore, there is a distinction between pure tea and flavored tea. Pure tea, as the name implies, is a tea that has not been blended with herbs or spices. For tea connoisseurs and enthusiasts, pure tea offers aromas and flavors that are particular to the type of tea, the area where it is grown, and the method of processing used. Not surprisingly, there are tea sommeliers or tea masters, a title earned by years of education, training, and experience.

The type of tea most casual tea drinkers consume is flavored tea, which includes all the most familiar varieties, such as English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Chai. English Breakfast is unique among flavored teas as its flavor arises from blending certain black teas from different geographical locations rather than using additives. Earl Grey tea is primarily flavored with bergamot oil, an oil extracted from the bergamot orange peel, giving it a light citrus flavor. Earl Grey tea is mostly commonly made with black tea, but other types of tea, such as green tea, are also made into Earl Grey tea.

Chai tea is typically made from black tea, but other types of tea are also used. Its flavors come from spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and black pepper.

For Canadian readers, the massively popular Red Rose Tea, like English Breakfast, blends certain black teas from different geographical sources.

Herbal teas, also known as tisanes, are made from various herbs, spices, flowers, fruits, and roots. They contain no caffeine. Chamomile, peppermint, ginger, hibiscus, and rooibos are the five most common herbal teas.

HOW IS TEA CONSUMED IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES?

In the United Kingdom, drinking tea is a cultural touchstone. Tea leads all other beverages in terms of consumption. Black tea with milk is the most typical way tea is consumed in the UK.

In India, tea is also the most consumed beverage. Chai, made from black tea and typically brewed with milk, sugar, and spices, is the leading drink of choice.

China, like many other Asian countries, has a broad preference for various types of tea. Black, green, oolong and herbal teas are all popular, reflecting the region’s rich tea culture.

Another tea-drinking country is Argentina, where mate is the most popular beverage. Mate is made from the leaves of the yerba mate (mah-TAY) plant and is a type of herbal infusion rather than traditional tea.

On the flip side of tea’s popularity is Mexico, where tea doesn’t make the top five beverage list at all. After water, coffee is the most consumed beverage in Mexico, followed by soft drinks, agua frescas, and cerveza.

In the United States, particularly in the southern states, most tea consumed is iced tea. Iced tea can be made with any type of tea, but the most common is black tea. Beyond water, in terms of popularity, tea ranks third behind coffee and soft drinks.

According to the market data portal Statista, the top five tea-drinking countries in 2016 were Turkey, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and Iran. Canada was ranked 22, the United States was 36, and Mexico trailed at 56.

WHAT THE HECK IS BUBBLE TEA?

Until now, at least, my haphazard tea education has lacked any understanding of the cultural phenomenon of bubble tea. Silly me, I thought some sort of machine was used to blow air bubbles into a cup of tea.

But that’s not it. However, it does start with tea – green, black or oolong. The tea is cooled, and milk is added: whole, soy, condensed, or even coconut milk. Also added are tapioca pearls. These are small, chewy balls made from tapioca starch. The pearls are cooked until they reach a jelly-like consistency. This adds a texture to the drink. Despite common misconceptions, the “bubble” in bubble tea originally referred to the frothy foam created when the tea is shaken.

In the interest of research (and curiosity), we headed to a bubble tea place to try it. I chose dirty bubble tea, a drink made with cooled oolong tea, cold milk, brown sugar syrup, ice, and a handful of black tapioca balls. The drink required shaking to mix the layers. A large-diameter straw allowed the tapioca pearls to be slurped up as they sank to the bottom of the glass. The pearls were quite dense and chewy but without any real taste. I could detect the taste of tea in the drink mixture, but overall, it seemed like a beverage a long way from the centuries-old practice of sprinkling dried leaves into a cup of hot water and serving.

So, there you have it: from 3rd-century China, with monks sipping hot green tea in a monastery, to a trendy bubble tea shop in the foothills east of the Canadian Rockies, a beginner’s journey to the story and flavors of tea. I’m not that far yet in my tea journey, but I appreciate the words of a tea guru, James Norwood Pratt, who once wrote, “Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.”

For contact or comment, email box95jackson@gmail.com.

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Tejate Today: Oaxaca’s Pre-Hispanic Drink Was Reserved for Royalty

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By Alvin Starkman M.A., J.D.

Gloria Cruz Sánchez holds a jícara (half gourd), high above her head while in a ritualized fashion she pours water down into a large green glazed ceramic bowl containing a beige doughy mush, creating foam. She’s in the Oaxaca Sunday market town of Tlacolula de Matamoros, completing the last phase in making tejate, just like her forebears thousands of years earlier. If you’ve been to a Oaxacan market you’ve likely seen it being served to locals, and may have been afraid to imbibe; it looks like spent shaving cream that surely would make you ill. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Tejate is a nutritious pre-Hispanic drink which was reserved for Aztec high priests, and Zapotec rulers before them. It’s still consumed today by Oaxacans of every station in life. Tejate is made exclusively by women, using virtually the same ingredients and methods employed over millennia. It dates to more than 3,000 years ago.

Tejate’s components are corn, cacao (sometimes substituted with coconut), purified or mountain spring water, seeds of the mamey fruit, dried aromatic “funeral tree flowers” (from the Quararibea funebris bush), lime mineral, sometimes a seasonal nut, and ash from burnt wood. As distinct from many other traditional Oaxacan delicacies (i.e. mole negro), all of tejate’s ingredients are native to Mexico; and all but cacao are endemic to the state of Oaxaca. There is, however, one exception: for the asking the tejatera will add sugary water as a sweetener, whereas in pre-Hispanic times she would have used bee honey or baked caramelized agave.

Preparing tejate is an extremely laborious task. In fact in order to have it ready to serve in markets by about 9:30 am, women must begin the process at roughly 4:00 am. And so Gloria awakens at her home in the village of San Marcos Tlapazola while it’s still dark, long before roosters have begun to crow, so as to have her tejate ready for market sales. She toasts the flowers, mamey seeds and cacao on an earthen comal using dried pencas (agave leaves) as firewood. She does the same with peanuts. She keeps the mixtures segregated from one another.

She then washes the corn in a clay colander, gingerly removing any small stones. Thereafter she boils spring water in a terracotta cauldron on a stone base, again fueled with leaves of the succulent. She adds powdered lime, strained ash, and the corn. The mixture simmers for about 40 minutes. The flames die down. The corn is strained once more to cool and to remove excess ash.

Gloria now reaps the benefits of the modern age; she walks to a mill to have the cacao mixture and then the corn, separately ground. She used to do all the grinding on a metate (primitive grinding stone), but when the mill opened in her village she decided to take advantage of it. She then ambles back to her homestead. While the mixtures are again cooling, breakfast preparations ensue. It’s about 6:00 am, and time for a small drink of mezcal.

Gloria spends the next two hours grinding the roasted peanuts on a metate followed by painstakingly combining that puree with the corn and cacao mixtures. It all gets blended together in an orderly, almost ceremonial manner. This most delicate step must be done by hand.

After breakfast, in the back of a covered pickup along with others from the village, Gloria travels to Tlacolula, where she erects her stall. She begins the pièce de résistance, holding the jícara high above her head with one hand, the other mixing the almost buttery thick concoction with the water from on high. She repeats the process until all in the ceramic bowl has been transformed into tejate, the cacao-nutty-maple frothy drink of the gods.

Gloria has her regular customers, those who attend the market on a weekly basis; but many are infrequent visitors, including both foreign and domestic tourists. Some drink Gloria’s tejate alongside her stall, in a painted jícara she supplies. Others buy it in a plastic cup “to go.” Usually by mid-afternoon, typically no later than 4 pm, she’s completely sold out. Gloria will then shop for more ingredients in the market, readying for the next Sunday’s preparations before returning to her village in the back of that same covered pick-up. It’s been a hard yet rewarding, long day’s work.

Alvin Starkman operates Mezcal Educational Excursions of Oaxaca (www.mezcaleducationaltours.com). For the past three decades he’s been a regular imbiber of tejate; and he’s still standing.