Ok
With the milk oolong another poster said its' uniqueness was due to a specific cultivar being more 'sappy'. Would most milk/silk oolongs be made from this specific cultivar?
Coming into work this morning I realized something, and yes, i am slow :)
I always wondered how so many varieties of tea could be made from a "tea leaf", white, yellow, green, oolong, black, puerh. I always thought it was one "leaf" type and the processing was the key. Withering, roasting, etc were the reason for the differences.
Now, after reading the post on milk oolong, and the reply from space cowboy and lew, and the mention of a cultivar, a light came on in my head. Yes, it took a day to come on.
I now assume that like grapes varieties, where the tannin, aciditiy, aroma, sugar content etc are influenced by breeding, that tea leaf varieities over the thousands of years have been developed into leaf used for specific teas.
Would a white tea leaf cultivar only be used for white teas ? Harvested in the spring once then left alone? Would/could the same bush be used later in the season for greens, oolongs and puerh's ? Is this milk/silk oolong cultivar mainly used for this specific tea type ? Or is it versatile and used for other types ?
How many cultivars are there ?
And lastly, Is space cowboy a fan of jamiroquai the band ? I love the song spcae cowboy and their other songs.
i find that as my knowledge and experience grows related to tea, my enjoyment of tea increases as well. it helps me appreciate the differences in the tea types more and acknowledge the great deal of human time behind each tea type. alanj