Last Updated on 31 July 2024 by Herman Tan Manado
Back in the 1970s, medical researchers were startled to discover that people who drank moderate amounts of a certain natural substance seemed to have greater protection against cancer, heart attacks, strokes, infections, diarrhea, dental caries, and a host of other ailments.
During the next twenty-five years, as research was conducted by scientists around the world, it was proven that this “wonder substance” could :
Enhance immune system function by guarding against the oxidants and free radicals that weaken the body’s natural defensive system.
- Prevent normal cells from turning cancerous.
- Suppress the formation and growth of tumors.
- Help regulate cholesterol levels.
- Lower the risk of stroke by making blood platelets less “sticky.”,
- Help control blood pressure.
- Lower the risk of epileptic seizures in laboratory animals.
- Help control blood sugar levels.
- Assist in weight loss by blocking the breakdown of starch.
- Ward off viruses, fungi, and food-borne bacteria.
- Fight bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities and bad breath.
- Slow the aging process.
And there’s more. Scientists studying 3,380 women over the age of fifty living in Tokyo were astonished to find that those drinking this substance lived longer than those who did not!’ And many other studies conducted at leading medical centers and universities the world over confirmed that drinking moderate amounts of this amazing substance could actually help to lengthen life.
The good news is that this “wonder drug” is readily available and remarkably inexpensive. You can buy it in your local grocery or health food store. And it tastes. delicious! What is this “wonder drug”? It’s green tea. That’s right. The simple, delicious beverage that’s served to you in Japanese restaurants has amazing medicinal properties.
The fact that green tea promotes good health will come as no surprise to the Chinese and Japanese people, who have been drinking it with traditional Japanese tea set and Chinese tea set for thousands of years. In fact, a whole book on the health benefits of green tea was written in the year 1211, in which the monk Eisai stated, “Tea is a miraculous medicine for the maintenance of health. Tea has an extraordinary power to prolong life.”
Yes, green tea has been considered a “medicine” in China for over 4,000 years, and was written about by both Dharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, and Shen-both Dharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, and Shen Nung, the father of study of medicinal herbs. For these and many other ancients, tea was considered “the divine elixir of the gods.”
What Is Tea?
Tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant, a cousin of the flowering camellia bushes that many people grow in their gardens. At one time, botanists thought there were two distinct varieties of tea: Camellia sinensis, which originated in China, thrived in the cool climate of the higher elevations, and produced small leaves about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide, and Camellia assamica, which was native to India and did well in semitropical climates, where it produced large leaves that could grow to be 10 inches long and 4 inches wide.
But recently botanists concluded that, despite the obvious differences in these two plants, they actually belonged to the same species— Camellia sinensis.
The Real Thing
Although just about any drink made by combining hot water and leaves, flowers, or roots is commonly referred to as “tea,” true tea is made only from the leaves and buds of the Camellia sinensis bush. Herbal tea, then, is not really tea at all.
Tea is an evergreen shrub that, when allowed to grow wild, produces fragrant white blossoms in the spring. These blossoms eventually form a fruit containing one to three small seeds. In order to reproduce, the tea plant must be cross-pollinated with another tea plant, and during this process genes and chromosomes are exchanged. Just as in animals, the baby tea plant winds up with some of the characteristics of one parent, and some of the other, as well as some from earlier ancestors that may have been dormant. Thus every tea plant is completely unique.
As in any group, there are always a few super achievers in a field of tea plants and one that looks no different from its neighbor might be able to produce twice as many high-quality tea leaves. Tea planters don’t like to be at the mercy of random genetics, however, so they usually gather the seeds from their superior plants and cross-fertilize them with each other.
Or they may “clone” a particular bush through a process called Layering, in which the end of a branch that is still growing on the bush is buried. Once this branch establishes roots, it is cut away from the “mother” bush and continues to grow on its own. This way a bush can be exactly reproduced many times.
In the wild, a tea bush will become a 15-30-foot tree, surrounded by its offspring of little tea plants, but the cultivated tea plant is usually kept to a height of 3-5 feet for ease in plucking. Because its tender leaves can be easily scorched by the sun, tea is often planted among specially selected shade trees.
“King Tea Tree”
The largest tea tree in the world was discovered in 1939, growing wild in China’s Yunnan province. At an estimated 1,700 years old, it was more than 100 feet high and the diameter of its trunk was greater than 1 yard.
Plucking the Leaves
The part of the plant used for making tea is found in the uppermost section of the shoots, where the young, tender new leaves and buds are found. The development of these new buds and leaves is called the flush.
For superior tea, harvesters pluck either the bud or the bud plus the youngest leaf, while for good to average tea, they take the bud and the top two leaves. “Coarse plucking,” which results in average to below average tea, may consist of the bud, top two leaves, and the older leaf below them, plus some of the twig.
It’s interesting to note that, even in our superintend-trialized age, one plucking “tool” continues to outdo them all-human fingernails. Believe it or not, the majority of the world’s tea plucking is still done by hand! Even in Japan or Taiwan, where some of the world’s most complex electronics and machinery are manufactured, fine teas are never machine plucked.
And with good reason—tea harvesting machinery tends to be indiscriminate and harsh, ripping off and crushing not just the bud and top one or two leaves, but also coarser leaves, twigs, and anything else that gets in its way. This rough handling encourages the onset of fermentation, something to be avoided at all costs in green tea production.
Tea – A Scentual Experience
“Freshly plucked tea leaf has the same spicy smell as the growing leaf, resembling that of ginger root or the concentrated smell of hay with the acrid part predominating. As withering proceeds, the leaf develops a marked fruity smell, as of apples. During the first ten minutes or so of rolling, the fruity smell is accentuated and includes the smell of pears, caramel smell of burnt sugar.
– C. R. Harler, The Culture and Marketing of Tea
Once the leaves have been plucked, they are whisked off for processing. The way the leaves are processed whether they are withered, steamed, rolled, fermented, dried, or a combination of these methods has everything to do with the kind of tea that’s being manufactured.
Green, Black, or In Between?
There are three major kinds of tea-green, black and “other,” such as oolong-each processed quite differently. To make black tea, the fresh tea leaf is with ered by exposure to the air, and is broken and left to ferment after picking. Oolong tea is treated similarly, but the withering process is much shorter, resulting in a partially fermented leaf. For green tea, the leaf is not fermented at all. Instead, it is steamed immediately after harvesting to stop the fermentation process, then rolled and dried.
Who-Long?
Oolong tea, a marriage of the qualities of green and black teas, is sometimes referred to as “the champagne of teas” because of its distinctive taste. Its name comes from the Chinese wu-lung, which means “black dragon.”
More than 2.75 million metric tons of dried tea are manufactured every year, approximately 72% of it as black tea, 23% as green tea, and only 4%’ as other tea.’ Why does the world consume so much more black tea than green tea? One reason comes from the British tea importers themselves back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Green tea looked rather anemic to them, so the tea importers tried to give it more color by adding lead filings, chopped willow, elm leaves, and gypsum. Not surprisingly, those who drank this concoction became ill. Not realizing that it was the additives that made them sick, the British concluded that green tea was unhealthy because it wasn’t “cooked” long enough!
World Tea Production (1995)
Total dry weight of tea measured in thousands of tons
Black Tea » 1,993
Green Tea » 624
Other Tea » 135
Total » 2,752