Published: 2024-04-30T00:00:00.000+01:00
Edited: 2024-04-30T00:00:00.000+01:00
Status: 🌱seedling

My current hyperfixation - TEA!!

Reading time: 5 minutes

One of my favourite things about having a Patreon is knowing that I have a space to talk about my current hyper-focuses and fixations. Of which there are have been many and varied. Thanks ADHD.

Right now I'm obsessed with tea.

It's far from the first time. I grew up in a tea drinking family that consumes a potentially inadvisable amount of the stuff every day, so I'm kind of pre-desposed to it.

I had a brief obsession with the stuff back in undergrad, when I was trying to drink fewer sugary drinks and putting way too much stock in anti-oxidants. Also I was a poor student, so I was mostly buying from Twinings individually wrapped tea bags, which wasn't the best quality. Interestingly, they don't make the majority of those teas any more. But it helped me discoverer rooibos, white tea and oolong, so I'm grateful for that.

The fixation cropped up again about this time last year, when I got into various flavoured blends. I've still got a lot of these teas, and theyre still very tasty, but that's not the source of my current hyper-fixation.

Right now its all about single source loose leaf teas made from the camellia sinensis plant aka true tea. Of which there are many.

And they all taste different depending on where they were grown, when they were harvested and how they're processed afterwards. I thought all that wine-tasting type bullshit about fruity notes were just that: bullshit.

Not any more.

See, it turns out that tea in the west is generally not that good. Not even in the UK, despite our loud claims to being the true home of the stuff (cos fuck several thousand years of Chinese history I guess?) Most of what ends up in tea bags is either dust or fannings, which is literally the lowest grade of tea you can get. And the tea is processed and blended with consistency and profit in mind, so we're just not getting to experience the full breadth of what the tea plant is capable of.

(Side note: the plant that tea is made of and the plant that tea tree oil is made of are completely different plants. I looked it up. Which makes sense but also annoys me for some reason.)

Now, I'm not advocating that everyone throw out their tea bags. I certainly still have a box of Yorkshire Tea in the cupboard, because sometimes what I want is good strong cuppa with milk.

But more and more I've found myself craving the greater variety and greater nuance of flavour offered by quality loose leaf teas.

And there's so much to learn about tea. The history, the cultures surrounding it, the different production methods and the biology and botany behind it and the chemistry of how one plant can produce so many different flavours. There are so many rabbit holes to go down and I want to explore all of them.

But here's a quick crash course in tea. Tea 101 if you will.

The Chinese consider there to be six major types of tea:

Red tea is probably what you're most familiar with. In the west we call it black tea. We named it after the colour of the dried leaves, the Chinese named it after the colour of the drink it produces. Black tea is by far the most produced and consumed tea in the world, making up around 70-80% of global tea production. In the west, we tend to favour black teas made from the assamica varietal of the tea plant, which tends to have a bold, malty flavour which can stand up to the addition of milk and sugar. I've found I prefer black teas made from the sinensis variety; these teas tend to have a softer, sweeter flavour profile, often reminiscent of honey or stone fruit. I drink these teas unadulterated.

Green tea is also well known in the west, mostly for its vegatal taste and purported antioxidant properties. Very little is done to the leaves to make green tea; they're plucked, heated to stop oxidation and then dried. This is the type of tea I've struggled most with in the past. Bagged green tea has either been flavourless, too bitter and astringent or like drinking lawn clippings, with very little in between. I'm currently exploring Chinese loose leaf green teas and finding that there's more to green tea than I thought. Still haven't found a daily drinker in this category though.

White tea is fairly easily available in the UK, though you probably have to go to a specialist tea shop to find it. This tea is plucked, withered (often in the sun) and then dried without a heating step. This means that some oxidation can continue, changing the flavour of white tea slowly as it ages. White tea tends to be delicate in flavour with sweet floral notes. I quite enjoy white tea in the evening. Which might not be the best idea as, despite common wisdom, white tea often contains the most caffeine.

Oolong tea is probably the broadest and most complex category of teas. They can range in oxidation level anywhere from around 20% to 70% and can be roasted or un-roasted. An unroasted, low oxidation oolong will taste completely different from a roasted highly oxidised one. There are four major oolong production areas: Taiwan, the Phoenix Mountains, Wuyi and Anxi, the latter three all in China. Each of these regions produces oolong teas with distinctive flavour profiles. Other regions have also started to produce oolong, but are less well known.

Dark tea can sometimes be found in the UK, particularly pu-erh, though that is far from the only type of dark tea. Dark teas undergo fermentation of some sort after they are oxidised, either naturally occurring or intentionally done. The fermentation process again changes the flavours, often leading to earthier, woodier flavour profiles. In this category I've only tried pu-erh, and then I've only scratched the surface of what's available. When describing the last pu-erh I drank I said it tasted "musty, but in a good way." Yeah, this category isn't for everyone.

Yellow tea is probably the least well known of the six major types, certainly in the west. It accounts for less than 1% of global tea production annually and can be difficult to find outside of China or Korea. Yellow tea is processed similarly to green tea, but has an extra step where it is wrapped in either paper or cloth. During this step the chlorophylls in the leaves start to break down giving rise to the yellow leaves that define this type. I've only tried the one yellow tea, and despite finishing a 25 g of it I still can't quite place the flavour of it. I definitely liked it though.

There's a seventh category of teas not present in the Chinese system, and that's altered teas. This is where something is done to alter the tea in some way after one of the traditional processing methods is complete. Think Earl Grey, decaffeinated tea, lapsang souchong. They're all altered teas. You could probably consider a blend like English Breakfast to be altered teas as well.

I'm only a couple of months into my current hyper-fixation, and I have so much more I want to learn, so many more teas I want to try.

If you're still reading after that info dump, well done! Have some tea recommendations as a reward.

Tonks' Tea Recommendations

Taiwanese Milk Oolong

This is my go to tea at the moment. It's creamy, sweet with a lovely vegetal after taste that reminds me of green teas. my favourite thing about this tea though is how unfussy it is. How much leaf to use? Doesn't matter, measure with your heart. Water temperature? Chuck boiling water in there, it can cope. Over steeped? No such thing.

If you do get this tea, look out for one labelled as the Jin Xuan cultivar to avoid artificially flavoured tea.

Bai Mu Dan White Peony

I love white tea for its sweet floral flavour, light straw coloured liquor and the fact I've never managed to brew a white tea that's bitter or astringent. Bai Mu Dan is the second highest plucking grade---not as light and delicate as silver needle, not quite as robust as shou mei---but I find it's where you can get the most bang for your buck with white tea.

Jin Jun Mei

This is a highly sought after Chinese black tea whose name translates to Golden eyebrow because of the appearance of the leaves. It has a sweet, honey aroma and taste that deepens into stone fruit ant occasionally chocolate notes. It's the complete opposite to most of the black teas I had growing up and I fell in love the moment I tried it.

Tai Ping Hou Kui

This is the first green tea I've tried that I've actually found myself coming back to. It has large flat leaves that brew up into a soft vegetal tea with a a refreshing cooling note. If over brewed it can have a touch of bitterness and astringency but that can be avoided by playing around with brewing parameters.

Pu-erh Tangerine

Pu-erh is a huge, complex category of its own, bu I've found that these tiny oranges stuffed with tea leaves are a great starting point. The tea picks up a bright citrus scent and flavour from the tangerine that contrasts really nicely with the earthy, woody flavour of the tea. And you can buy single tea oranges some places, which is a good way to try a tea you're not sure of.