Monday, May 25, 2009

A Little Note of Chinese Green Tea


Green tea plant has its origin and is native to the land of Asia. Green tea plant is indigenous to both India and China. Science of green tea plants was well known to Indians and Chinese was known since 5000 years. The history of green tea started as wild plants until they were cultivated as agricultural products. Tea was used as medicinal plants by our ancestors until they realized its effect and calmness on body for good health. Later it was started to be used as daily beverage and taken in many forms and varieties. Green tea plants when grown in wild were like trees and grew up to the height of around 90 feet and were fit enough to be called as green trees rather than plants. They got the present form of plant growing up to 3 to 5 feet after they were cultivated as plantation crop.

Green tea leaves when grew in wild as they grew up to the heights of trees, it was a tough job to pick the leaves early man used trained monkeys to pick the leaves and collected down. There are three main categories of tea plants oolong, black and green. These categories have further many varieties within as per the way they are processed. But all the three categories and their respective variants come from the same tea plant. They are categorized and made into different types through the science of processing and tastes man has invented. The process of these varieties vary in such a way that black tea undergoes several hours accelerated in heat and humidity and is oxidized. As oxidized it loses all the antioxidant properties came naturally and is not that effective on health as green tea.

Methods of processing of Chinese tea are endless and vary from region to region depending on the traditionally evolved concepts.

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