I have a feeling that distinguished and respected Sir crymad is a bit too involved with details on the technological side. These recopies were the result of experiments, serendipity, accidents, inspiration. There is nothing "sacred" about them.
Tomorrow we may find that a virus can be introduced to tea plants that would create a new wave of smells and tastes. May be a new, non-microbial chemistry can do wonders to our beloved plant. May be a new way of steeping (1/1000 of a second super-heated high-pressure water blast) or a new way of gathering or sorting tea leaves (robotic eye that can distinguish between the levels of saturation in tannin by using Raman spectroscopy with laser excitation) - the possibilities are endless. May be a cheap and portable liquid chromatograph that monitors the extraction of tea components so that we can actually see what happens during steeping willbe a new exciting gadget in our tea gadgetry at home and our children will nag us to stop the steeping earlier so that nasty "bitter" 2,3 hexa-3 metyl-tanno-benzo-glitein won't start getting in the teapot! China in entering the technoage, Chinese are very keen on science, just watch these guys start applying their college papers to tea!
But us long as it will yield a DRINK with something in its smell and taste that would please Homo sapience, it will be TEA.
The conceptual knowledge of the subject is -
- C. sinensis accumulates in its leaves variety of very complex organic compounds that also vary due to the environmental and other conditions.
- Some of these compounds even in their natural form happen to be pleasing for human smell and taste.
- These compound can be further processes by means of natural oxidation and natural and/or induced microbial fermentation so that their smell and taste differ considerably from their natural state, creating a richness and variety admired by human taste.
- Historically these varieties acquired certain terminology some due to the processing, some due to the geographical source, some due to taste treats. However it is important to remember that any classifications of teas has very little value other than just schematic.
- There is nothing that should prevent new developments in tea growing, manufacturing and consuming. New technologies may introduce changes to all steps of growing, gathering, processing and consuming tea and the only judge of the validity of such innovations is human taste and ultimately - MARKETS.
Alex Chaihorsky Reno, Nevada.