What is Green Tea?

The Original Category of Tea.

Green tea was taken out of wild and into agriculture after it was identified by ancient humans to have medicinal qualities. The original green teas were sun dried and over millennia it has evolved into the sub-categories of green tea that we know today.
\nWithin the various types of green teas, nuances of region, season of harvest, leaf style and the plucking standard are evident in the flavor profile of each tea. This makes green tea a broad category and a main stay in East Asian tea culture.

Green Tea Firing

Green tea is the least oxidized of the six tea types. Green teas are crafted with the application of heat in a step called firing. This heat denature the enzymes that cause tea leaves to change in color from green to yellow, to red and final brown in a natural process known as polyphenolic oxidation. Firing neutralizes these enzymes, halting oxidation and fixing the green color. This is what gives the category “green tea” its name. The degree of oxidation that is allowed before firing is the primary defining characteristic used to distinguish the six tea types.

In Japan, firing is most often conducted with steam heat, which rapidly blanches the tea leaves and fixes their bright green color. By comparison, in China and other origins, “dry heat” techniques such as pan-frying, tumble-roasting, oven-baking, and sun-curing are used.
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Steamed green teas typically have a more vivid green color and umami-rich tasting notes such as “nori seaweed.”Green teas that are fired with one of the dry heat methods typically develop a more floral or nutty character. For instance, “toasted chestnut” is a common taste descriptor for pan-roasted Chinese green teas. After firing, the leaves are shaped to create a variety of green tea styles, each with its own character, flavor and aroma.

Origins of Green Tea

Green teas as we know them today were originally developed out of more rustic styles of sun-dried tea, around the time of China’s ancient Song dynasty (960 – 1279 CE). Today, most green tea is grown in China, Japan and Korea, with an increasing amount grown in Southeast Asia. Whatever the region, the most sought-after green teas are those picked in springtime.

Notable Green Tea

As you begin to find your favorite types of green tea, consider the firing method, harvest season, and place of origin. We’ve included several recommendations for you to explore below.

Rishi Tea and Botanicals has partnered with the Nishi family for over a decade to create a sustainable tea farm and to establish some of the first organic tea farms in southern Japan. This is Nishi’s premier asamushi style sencha with a bright, lively character that is only found in the first flush.

Three different styles of green tea (steamed, oven-baked and roasted) are combined to make a deliciously smooth everyday green tea inspired by the classic Chinese green tea known as Wulu. Savory notes from steamed tea leaves are expertly balanced with the toasted chestnut flavor and flowery aromas of baked and roasted lots.

This innovative green tea is made with our partners in China from pure spring harvest tea buds left in a natural, slightly twisted shape. The result is a tea with an unimaginably rich sweetness that naturally complements the sweet perfume of Jasmine.

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What is Black Tea?

The Most Traveled Category of Tea.

Black Tea,” as it’s called in the West, is known as “Hong Cha” or “Red Tea” in Asia, due to its dark reddish infusion color and dark colored dried tea leaves covered with reddish-orange pekoe. At the outset of the tea trade, green teas could not “survive” the long voyage to Europe. Being oxidized, black tea made for a more chest-stable and seaworthy product. Carried in tea chests, black teas rapidly traveled around the globe, expanded in popularity and today it is no surprise that they are most well traveled type of tea in the world.

Oxidation and Black Tea

Unlike green tea processing, which attempts to preserve the green color of fresh tea leaves, black tea processing encourages fresh tea leaves to oxidize and change color from green to coppery red. This change in leaf color during processing is referred to as oxidation. The basic steps of black tea processing are picking, withering, tumbling, rolling, oxidation and drying.

In order to encourage oxidation black teas are rolled to bruise the leaves during processing. After rolling, black teas are arranged in shallow piles and left to rest while oxidation occurs. The pace at which oxidation occurs is controlled by the ambient temperature and humidity in the oxidation room. Both of these factors are an important in the flavor development of black tea.

Origins of Black Tea

Altitude is an important indicator of the essential character of black teas. Low elevation farms tend to produce more malty and full-bodied black teas, whereas high elevation gardens often yield brisk black teas with floral or fruity aromatics.
Join our Himalaya travels in Darjeeling where Joshua and crew vist the Golden Valley and Chamong Estate to discover the magical origins of Darjeeling Black Tea.

Notable Black Tea

Today, black teas are grown in all major tea regions, especially in India, Sri Lanka, China, Southeast Asia and Africa. This range of landscapes and growing climates creates a diverse collection of regional flavor profiles to explore.

Our finest grade of Dian Hong black tea, harvested from Mengku heirloom varietal tea trees in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province, the birthplace of tea. Masterfully oxidized into an auburn color flecked with golden buds, this black tea has an impressive strength, density and refined finish.

A special reserve for Earl Grey lovers, we infuse our top grades of Yunnan Dianhong black tea with the essential oil pressed from real bergamot citrus fruits grown in Calabria, Italy to yield our Earl Grey Supreme blend.

Wild Thai Black is an exciting addition to our collection of single-origin black teas. Hailing from a remote mountainous region in northern Thailand, where the growing conditions are truly wild, this ancient forest tea presents an impressive strength and rich flavor.

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What is Pu’er Tea?

Ancient Tea from the Yunnan Province

Pu’er tea is one of the oldest types of tea, with a history dating back more than 2,000 years. This ancient tea originates in Yunnan Province on China’s southwestern frontier, where a temperate climate and lush landscape, teeming with biodiversity, provides ideal growing conditions for tea. Until modern vegetative propagation (clonal cutting) methods were developed, all of Yunnan’s heirloom tea trees were grown from seed. Over the course of millennia, they evolved to create a rich genetic diversity. To this day, groves of ancient tea trees are still found on mountain sides around remote ethnic minority villages that transverse the subtropical regions of Yunnan. Some of the oldest living tea trees are found in this area and reach thousands of years in age.

The Two Distinct Styles

There are two distinct types of Pu’er: sheng (raw, green) and shu (ripened, dark). Many people have only experience tasting shu Pu’er. Shu Pu’er was developed in the 20th century as an attempt to emulate the aging of Sheng Pu’er. However, we ended up with a uniquely delicious tea of its own right. Both sheng and shu Pu’er are made from a sundried green tea called saiqing maocha. Saiqing maocha (translates as sun-dried crude tea) is a rustic style of sun-dried green tea. It is the base for both sheng and shu types of Pu’er tea.

The Base of Pu’er Tea

Saiqing is made by harvesting fresh leaf, followed by withering, firing in a ho wok or tumble drum roaster, rolling by hand or machine, then the tea is set outside under the sun to dry. This step is crucial, as most Chinese green teas are dried in an oven rather than the sun. The sun’s energy re-activates enzymatic activity in the leaf so that this type of green tea can slowly oxidize with age. Saiqing has a rustic flavor and abundant energy.

Sheng Pu’er Tea

Sheng Pu’er is made by taking single batches or blends of saiqing maocha (could be different vintages or different regions blended or a single-origin), weighing the tea leaf and putting the tea leaf into a cloth, steaming the leaf bundle, then compressing the tea leaves to form a cake, brick, mushroom, pumpkin, or a multitude of other forms. The compressed tea is then dried in a sauna-like room. The steaming and re-drying process serves to re-activate the enzymatic activity within the leaf. This is possible because the tea was dried in the sun during the shaiqing process. The sun-drying is what kept the enzymes intact for re-activation. The result is that sheng pu’er tea can age by means of post-oxidation. Meaning, the enzymatic activity in the compressed form allows the tea to slowly oxidize.

Shu Pu’er Tea

Shu Pu’er teas undergo a controlled pile fermentation process in which tea polyphenols are transformed from pale yellow-green to reddish brown over the course of about 85-120 days. After creating the blend from shaiqing maocha, the blend is steamed (which creates an environment for bacteriological fermentation), put in a pile where some old shu is added, and the pile is turned every day for the 85-120 process. Fermentation is what occurs to make the dark leaf color. The pile is pressed and dried to slow down fermentation and is stored. All of Rishi’s shu Pu’er is aged for a minimum of 2 years before selling or adding to blends. This reduces the chance of unwanted flavor defects.

Origins of Pu’er Tea

Like Champagne or other regionally specific foods and beverages, Pu’er tea is a geographically indicated product that can only be created and fermented in Yunnan province with sun-dried green tea grown from broad leaf tea tree varieties planted in Yunnan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.\n

Notable Pu’er Tea

The beauty of these dark teas is their ability to age, mature, and have flavor develop differently. You can enjoy sheng at any vintage. Saiqing is great at many vintage levels as well! Drink your tea, take some notes, set it aside for a couple years, and drink it again! Rishi has quite a few vintages to explore in both the sheng and shu collection, both in cakes and loose leaf

Ancient Pu’er Classic comprises multiple vintages resulting in a uniquely bold flavor profile with a body as deep as its history. This Shu Pu’er is notable for its notes of earthy sweetness, hints of cocoa, and a woodsy, aromatic finish. The very best in everyday organic Pu’er.The Mengku strain is prized for its mineral and green intensity, which transforms into crystalline sweet honey as the tea ages.

This reserve pu’er tea is released only when it is ready. A deep garnet infusion with a dense, opaque liquor bears a mellow sweetness that drinks remarkably smooth with a rich earth body.

Our Travel Journal

Rishi Tea and Botanical’s practice of direct trade is defined by personal relationships with tea and herb growers around the world. Follow along as our team of buyers travels extensively each year to follow the peak harvests and selects the very best micro-lots just days after production.

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What is White Tea?

Elegant & Esteemed for Noble Sweetness

White teas are a pure and noble expression of Camellia sinensis sometimes refered to as “Scholars Tea”. Unlike the other types of tea, white teas are neither fired nor rolled. They are picked early in the spring season and allowed to simply air dry, or wither, on racks in a special room with controlled airflow, temperature and humidity. The moisture con- tent inside white tea leaves evaporates slowly over the course of 1-2 days of withering, curing the leaves in their own juices and concentrating the present sweetness. White teas undergo gentle enzymatic oxidation during this withering period.

The First Harvest

White tea is picked only during the first weeks of the spring harvest when the tender leaves contain the energy and sugars of new growth. These young leaves are coated in a soft downy hair known to botanists as trichomes, which protect the tender shoots from pests and bright UV rays. They also lend a soft mouth feeling and cotton candy-like sweetness to the brewed tea. Known in Chinese as bai hao (“white hair”), trichomes give the young buds a silvery-white appearance. This is why they are called “white teas.”

The absence of shaping presents two main styles of white tea, depending on the plucking standard used. Silver Needles consists of “single buds,” which are new tea leaves that have not yet opened. White Peony, on the other hand, is made with “one leaf and a bud” or “two leaves and a bud” plucking standards. For that reason, it is “leafier” in appearance when compared to Silver Needles.\n

Origins of White Tea

White tea originated in the eastern Chinese province of Fujian, north of the Min River in a town called Zhenghe. Tea bush cultivar selection in white tea growing regions favors moderate caffeine, high amino acid content and mild tannin. This creates a refined, gently stimulating energy that feels natural at any time of day. In fact, white tea is popular as a “scholar’s tea,” and has a history of promoting wakefulness and focus among the literati of ancient China.

Notable White Tea

With its natural sweetness white tea is a favorite category for many tea lovers.

Widely esteemed for its delicate appearance, elegant sweetness and noble character, Silver Needle tea is comprised of pure, individually plucked tea buds harvested only in the early springtime. Our Silver Needle is unique in that it is sourced from Menghai and Mengku broad leaf varietal.White Peony, also known by the traditional name Bai Mu Dan, is a popular style of white tea made of young tea leaves and silvery unopened leaf buds. Our White Peony comes from Zhenghe town in Fujian Province, the original birthplace of white tea centuries ago.Our most popular white tea blend highlights the natural peachy character of White Peony with the essence of succulent peaches. This tea’s juicy peach notes are enhanced with hints of quince and zesty tangerine. With its abundantly fruity flavor, Peach Blossom is an approachable introduction to the category of white tea

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What is Green Tea?

The Original Category of Tea.

Green Tea Firing

Origins of Green Tea

Notable Green Tea

More About Green Tea

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What is Black Tea?

The Most Traveled Category of Tea.

Oxidation and Black Tea

Origins of Black Tea

Notable Black Tea

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What is Pu’er Tea?

Ancient Tea from the Yunnan Province

The Two Distinct Styles

The Base of Pu’er Tea

Sheng Pu’er Tea

Shu Pu’er Tea

Origins of Pu’er Tea

Notable Pu’er Tea

Our Travel Journal

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What is White Tea?

Elegant & Esteemed for Noble Sweetness

The First Harvest

Origins of White Tea

Notable White Tea

More From Tea 101

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