3000 types of tea?

I went to brooklyn Ten Ren yesterday and bought some white tea and an oolong (that tastes more like gunpowder green). The nice lady gave me a scan of a ny times story about tea. It said there are 3000 types of tea. Is that true? Are most of them perceptibly different? (more so than different harvest of the same type)?

-AK

Reply to
AK
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Dear AK:

I already spent a long amount of time with Tea and I still ask myself the same question. I am drinking tea from my childhood but for the last 7 years I have been seriously drinking tea with some basic background. For the last 1 and a half years I am crazily drinking and working on tea. 3,000 types,humm. I don't think so. I have been told the same thing(3,ooo types) by many tea experts. But when I asked them to give me a full list, believe me -- none of them could provide me the list. Then I went throught extensive research and so far my list couldn't climb up even near 3,000. But there is a possibility of this fact of 3,000 type. For example:-

Chinese KEEMUN can be named like- Keemun Mao feng, Keemun Hao Ya A, Keemun Hao ya B,Keemun Hao Ya Grade C, Chi-Men, Fowliang,Keemun China Black Grade 1132, Keemun China Black grade 1143, Keemun Congue, Keemun First grade, Keemun Grand TGFOP, Keemun Ning Hong Ying Hao,Keemun OP, Keemun premium, keemun superior, keemun Imperial, Keemun mao feng Wiry Congou, Keemun Ning Chow bla. bla. bla...

About Chinese Gunpowder green tea:- Gunpowder green teas are known by their district-Tienkai Gunpowder, Moyune Gunpowder, Hunan Gunpowder, Fukien Gunpowder etc. Also sometimes Gunpowder is graded by numbers. Its all very confusing.

Think of Oolong:-Famous Ti Kwan Yin- 1st grade, Elegant queen, K100,Monkey picked,Special grade,Spring floral,Superior,Sweet lady,Tei Baoota,Top Confou....

So you see in this way I believe there can be even more then 3,000 types. There are also different types of teas from Srilanka, India, Bangladesh, Nepal,Japan,Taiwan,Indoneshia,Kenya many other countries.

Last year while I was having a glass of exotic Thai iced tea, I asked the tea master, where that tea came from. For my basic Thai language knowledge with his kind help, I was able to visit Chang-rai(The tea estate area in Thailand by the golden triangle. I found out they grow

6 types of Oolong, the red tea used in Thai ice tea and also some green tea. I was surprised to see the varities.

Basically there are three types of tea -- black, oolong, and green. But now white and yellow teas are available too not to mention so many blends.

But now come back to the reality- TASTE, I don't think there are 3,000 varities of taste. Like all those exotically named Keemuns taste quite the same, the differences are some are more smokey, fruity,richer aroma. But yes some are really exceptionaly tasty, such as-Keemun mao Feng, Hao Ya A or Hao Ya B. For your information, there are also Keemun Mao Feng green.

So far I have been able to compile 180 types of Chinese black tea, 179 types of Chinese green tea, and 147 types of Chinese Oolong tea. There are also similar lists (though not as extensive) from India,Srilanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc.

Enjoy your cup of tea.

Ripon (From Bangladesh)

Reply to
Ripon

On 31 Oct 2003, AK posted the following to rec.food.drink.tea:

I think the numbers get artificially inflated. There is a lot of variety, but it's easy to inflate the number of variations when you mix and match:

  • Country of origin * Region of origin * geography of estate * Type of tea * grade of leaf * season of harvest * method of harvest * blending and additives.

Plus any variety of teas flavored with orange, plum, black currants, or mangos.

Several references I've seen argue that there are 3 basic types of tea (black, green and oolong), and claim that the "over 3000 types" of tea come from variations of those three.

I guess "white" is considered "light green." ;)

Derek

Reply to
Derek

Thanks Ripon, Derek.. That's what I thought, too, but I was curious still :-)

-AK

Reply to
AK

I'd base the number of tea types on the number of plantations whatever that number is and 3000 doesn't seem out of range for a world count. For example two darjeelings from two adjacent plantations would have a discernable taste difference at least for a tea taster. I also expect any two commerical brands of a tea type to taste different. Actually there is only one tea plant and what we know to be the difference is based on soil, climate, processing, etc. The taste of tea will vary from cup too cup when all things stay the same which is a bottom line no other beverage can match. Instead of another book on the tea trade how about something about the psychology of tea drinking. I think there is something too the fortune teller and tea leaves. I can't tell you how many times I make tea and dejavu or have premonitions.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

On 01 Nov 2003, Space Cowboy posted the following to rec.food.drink.tea:

Me, too. I've steeped tea before, and I'm pretty sure I'll do it again in the future. :)

Derek

Reply to
Derek

I was thinking the same thing. Consider tea like wine, and 3000 types is altogether possible.

--crymad

Reply to
crymad

definitely more than 3000!! you can take a look at lu yu's cha jing, often known as the tea doctrine written abt eight hundred year ago. countless tea types were already documented by then.

there are probably many teas nobody've heard of or tasted, cuz most of these products dont really travel far. anji bai pian? (anji white leaves) xianlong xiang min? (xianlong fragrance) ma liu mi? (big mtn bitter tea) bu zhi chun? (doesnt know spring ) bu jian tian? (doesnt see sky) ban tian yao? (half the horizon) qian li xiang? (thousand miles fragrance) wuyi rou gui? (wuyi rock tea) shui jin gui? (water turtle) lu xue ya (green snow buds) xue li oolong and the list goes on. i m just offhandedly spouting names. if you look at black tea, difffernt plantations produce differnt teas too. plantations in malaysia, vietnam, china, india, etc all different!

Reply to
ws

AK4gDob.14039$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net10/31/03

19: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.com

I find the Brooklyn Ren Ren friendlier and less sales-aggressive than the Manhattan branch. But then as everyone knows, everything in Brooklyn is better. If the oolong tasted like gunpowder green, something is amiss, IMHO. The white tea is a silver needles, I take it. Was it one of the transparent plastic containers on the counter? If so, it's most likely pretty fresh and good.

3000 types? Probably a gross underestimate. Yes, each is perceptibly different. With different tea plant varietals, variants in processing practices, vagaries of weather and soil, and even the time of day and season of year the tea is picked, it's no small wonder. To which, I'd add that teas picked at a particular garden on a particular day -- at least in Darjeeling, as far as I know -- are sold as a separate "invoices," in part because each day's picking will taste different from all others. How about that?

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

much thanks for this discussion. came across as part of research i'm doing on tea and trying to find some validity to the 3,000 varieties statement - still as vague in 2017 as it was in 2003

Reply to
melissa.mstyn

What is a "variety?"

You have individual plant varieties (and the plants are clones these days so just about any genetic variation can be considered a different variety. You have terroir, encompassing soil and climate. And you have processing.

In Ceylon most of the tea plants are very closely related genetically and you would not be stretching TOO far to call them all the same variety of plant. But the tea grown in kandy and the tea grown at higher altitudes in nuwara eliya are totally different, due to the different terroir.

Traditionally teas grown in Assam have been fully withered and processed into orthodox black teas. A number of growers are trying to use different processing (more typical of Chinese growers) to make green teas. The end result is very strange to my mouth, plants bred to make tea for processing as black tea but processed into a green tea.

Likewise the Japanese have recently been taking tea gardens planted with traditional plant varieties intended to make green teas, and processing them to make small quantities of black tea. The end result is totally different than traditional black teas from China or India, totally different than green teas from Japan. They are their own thing.

So... maybe there are 3,000 varieties of plant. I don't know if that's true but it could be possible.

Maybe there are 3,000 traditional varieties of processed tea. I don't know if that's true either, but traditionally each variety of plant has been bred for specific kinds of processing so there are likely few more traditional varieties of tea than of plant.

Maybe there are 3,000 modern varieties of processed tea. Considering that people are now mixing different processing types on the same source plants, that dramatically extends the number of possible varieties.

So what is a variety? I can pick three darjeelings and they are all different. One's a first flush that is nearly green, another is a second flush that is nearly green, and the third is a second flush that has been more darkly processed. They all come off the same tea plants. Are they different varieties? They all taste very different from one another.

It's not simple and that's another reason to like tea.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

...and CTC black teas.

And different plucking standards applied to the same plants can yield very different teas, e.g. Silver Needle, White Peony, etc. And there are many, many different manufacturing styles within a single genre like green tea. And how many traditional genres are there? Maybe six, maybe more, depending on how you think of it.

Indeed.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

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