Some of the most intensely flavored teas come from some of the highest regions in the world. Here we have a Taiwanese oolong with gardenia flavors and a Ceylon black tea with aromas of wintergreen.

* Ali Shan oolong, page 81* Uva Highlands Pekoe Ceylon black tea, page 160THE INFLUENCE OF FIRING ON TEA.

To understand how firing, the final stage of tea preparation, can affect flavor, compare Tencha, a j.a.panese green tea that is not fired at all, with Gunpowder, one of the most heavily fired Chinese green teas.

* Tencha j.a.panese green tea, page 70* Gunpowder Chinese green tea, page 49SMOKY TEAS.

Once upon a time, teas were so heavily fired that they tasted of pine smoke. A few still do. These are two of the tea world's most intensely smoky varieties.

* Da Hong Pao oolong, page 93* Lapsang Souchong Chinese black tea, page 117APPENDIX.

From Tree to Tea: The Chemistry of TeaWhile the transformation of tea from bitter, waxy leaves on a bush to liquor in a pot may seem absurdly magical, tea makers actually follow the same basic steps worked out by farmers in China by the eighteenth century. To cultivate a taste for tea, it helps to understand the stages of tea production, as each phase contributes to the final taste. I have tried to write this out in the simplest possible language, since some of the scientific terminology may vex those (like me) for whom Chemistry 101 is a distant memory. Tea science is a burgeoning field; few resources have been dedicated to understanding the chemistry behind its flavor. Sometimes it can seem as though the conclusions change with every new study. From what little we do know, however, the science of tea can enthrall. Understanding these transformations will expand your palate. Consider this appendix, then, Tea Chemistry 101 and Palate Cultivation 202.HARVEST.

Flavor begins in the fields. Scientists have identified over six hundred flavors and aromas in tea, many with obscure and wonderful names like "linalool" and "hexanol." The miracle is that tea makers create these hundreds of flavors from only six cla.s.ses of chemical compounds that all reside within the tea plant: color pigments, sugars, amino acids, fatty acids, caffeine, and polyphenols. These compounds exist in nature to nourish and protect the plant against attack. The aromas and flavors we find so enticing in tea actually deter aphids, leafhoppers, and other insects from eating the leaves. In essence, tea makers pose as insects, damaging the leaves to provoke them to defend themselves-and, in the process, rendering them delicious.

The first secret to flavorful tea is to gather the leaves at their peak, when they contain these compounds in the most mouthwatering proportions. With the exception of tropical teas from a.s.sam and Ceylon, the finest teas peak in the spring.

Like all plants, tea bushes grow through photosynthesis. The color pigments chlorophyll and carotene absorb sunlight so that the plant can convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and other sugars. When the sun fades in the winter, the bushes go dormant, storing nutrients in their roots. As the winter dormancy ends and the temperature warms, the plants draw on these nutrients to create more leaves. The plant forges amino acids to build proteins. And it produces caffeine and polyphenols to repel bugs and protect the plant from attack. The two chemicals appear to disorient herbivores, dissuading them from eating the leaves.

Caffeine and polyphenols are likely of most interest to the tea drinker from a practical standpoint. After all, many of us drink the beverage every morning for its ability to wake us up. And a growing percentage drink it to stay healthy, although the "health via antioxidants" claim remains inconclusive. It is safe to say that the polyphenols in tea act as antioxidants, but scientists are still establishing what antioxidants do. They appear to reduce the effects of free radicals, molecules that may interfere with the healthy expression of DNA, provoking the mutations that may lead to tumors. Thus tea may help stave off cancer as well as heart disease. We just don't know for sure. Luckily, no scientific studies exist to prove that tea is not healthy.

I would also love to be able to give definitive numbers about the levels of caffeine in these different teas, but the amount of caffeine varies too much-both from one plant to another and within the different teas-to offer any specifics. White teas likely have more caffeine than green teas or black teas because buds have more caffeine than mature leaves. And tea generally has about a third the caffeine of coffee. If you are trying to avoid caffeine, the best advice I can give is to drink herbal tea. Tea makers can remove caffeine from tea by rinsing the leaves in either ethyl acetate or supercritical carbon dioxide-liquid CO2. Both are safe, but both leach out the more nuanced flavors along with the stimulant.

For tea connoisseurs, caffeine and polyphenols each affect a tea's flavor along with sugars, amino acids, and fatty acids. Sugars obviously make the tea sweet. Fatty acids provide tea with many of its aromas. Amino acids influence body, giving teas their relative brothiness, or umami umami. One amino acid in particular, called "L-theanine" ("theanine" for short), seems to create the most mouth-filling qualities. j.a.panese tea makers frequently speak of the favorable theanine levels in their best teas. Theanine has also been increasingly studied for its ability to soothe the brain and enhance concentration, making tea a gentler stimulant than coffee. Caffeine, an alkaloid, gives tea a mildly bitter bite. Polyphenols furnish tea with its tannic qualities, its relative astringency or briskness. Two have a particularly strong effect: EGCG, or epigallocatechin-3-gallate, a smooth-tasting polyphenol; and EC, or epicatechin, a harsher, gra.s.sy-tasting molecule. Spring teas taste particularly well rounded and mellow because they have the most EGCG and the least EC. Spring teas have different names in different countries: Qing Ming teas in China; Senchas in j.a.pan; First Flush teas in Darjeeling.

In summer, the plants slow their growth, digging in for the heat and the a.s.sault of late-season insects. j.a.panese Banchas plucked in May and June taste gra.s.sy and thin compared with early-spring Senchas because they have about a third fewer amino acids and a much higher proportion of EC to EGCG. Second Flush Darjeelings and later-season oolongs like Bai Hao have far less glucose and fewer amino acids than their earlier-season equivalents. Makers of both teas compensate for the nutrient loss by allowing insects to attack them before harvesting. The plant reacts by producing a defensive compound with a lovely fruity aroma evocative of Muscat grapes.

To ensure the most flavors, tea makers have also developed a dizzying number of tea varietals, each with differing levels of the six chemical compounds. Almost all the pure teas in this book have been bred from two parent varietals: Camellia sinensis Camellia sinensis var. var. sinensis sinensis, a small-leafed variety indigenous to China; and Camellia sinensis Camellia sinensis var. var. a.s.samica a.s.samica, a larger-leafed type native to a.s.sam. From these two, tea makers have developed hundreds of cultivars. The exquisite Chinese breed Da Bai Da Bai ("big white") produces extra-large, glucose-packed buds, perfect for white teas and tippy black teas. The j.a.panese cultivar ("big white") produces extra-large, glucose-packed buds, perfect for white teas and tippy black teas. The j.a.panese cultivar yabukita yabukita grows in 90 percent of that country's tea gardens, because of its above-average levels of amino acids and relatively low levels of polyphenols. The black teas Keemun (China) and New Vithanakande (Sri Lanka) both get their chocolaty flavors in part from cultivars with extra amino acids. grows in 90 percent of that country's tea gardens, because of its above-average levels of amino acids and relatively low levels of polyphenols. The black teas Keemun (China) and New Vithanakande (Sri Lanka) both get their chocolaty flavors in part from cultivars with extra amino acids.

After choosing the tea cultivar and the timing of the harvest, tea makers can also control the levels of compounds in tea-and therefore the tea's flavor-by gathering the leaves by hand. The finest teas also come from the very youngest leaves. Tea plants grow by sending out buds-incipient leaves shaped like spears that unfurl into young leaves, then mature. The youngest leaves on the plant are called "leafsets," consisting of a bud and its adjoining two leaves. These leafsets are loaded with nutrients to feed and protect the sprouts as they grow. Fully mature leaves contain comparatively few nutrients, since they send whatever they photosynthesize into the roots for storage. Mechanical harvesters cannot distinguish between leafsets and mature leaves; like crude hedge clippers, they merely shear the bushes of their outer layer. As a result, machine-harvested teas often taste dull and insipid. Most of the teas in this book were gathered by hand. It is meticulous work. Harvesters often wear gloves affixed with razor blades to snip off the leafsets one at a time, their fingers flying from branch to branch as they work their way down the bushes, gently storing the cut leaves in straw hampers as they work.WITHERING.

For all the work involved in harvesting it, freshly plucked tea tastes like bitter gra.s.s. Its hundreds of flavors don't begin to emerge until tea makers go to work to draw them out. As I've said, these flavors exist in the plant to defend it against attack. The first line of defense emerges right after the leaves have been plucked. Cut off from the roots, the leaves begin to lose moisture and nutrients. In an effort to feed themselves, the leaves break down starches into glucose and proteins into amino acids. In what scientists believe is an attempt to alert the rest of the plant that they are in distress, the leaves also transform fatty acids into aromatic compounds. These alerts are the first flavors to emerge, in this process called "withering," or dehydration, as tea makers let the leaves go limp.

The longer the leaves wither, the more aromas the final tea yields. Green teas wither only over the short trip between the field and the factory, just long enough to generate some of the lemony, gra.s.sy scents of linalools and hexanols. Oolongs and black teas wither much longer. a.s.sam CTC teas are among the least aromatic black teas, as they wither very briefly; the humidity of tropical a.s.sam makes dehydration nearly impossible.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, high-mountain oolongs, First Flush Darjeelings, and some high-grown Ceylons wither for several hours more-not just to provoke the aromas, but also to dry out the leaves and concentrate the compounds. Over so much time, fatty acids continue to degrade into yet more aromatic compounds like the geranium-scented geraniol and jasmine-scented methyl jasmonate. The aromatic compound methyl salicylate gives Uva Highlands Ceylon black tea its remarkable minty aroma. In addition to fatty acid degradation, in black teas and darker oolongs, which continue to wither as they oxidize, the pigment carotene starts to degrade into the aromatic compounds ionones, damascones, and damascenones, forming delicious fruity aromas reminiscent of apricots, peaches, and honey.

The scent of withering tea is incomparable-fresh and floral, far more vibrant than the final scents of brewed tea. Like a tea man's perfume counter, tea factories at the peak of harvest throb with aromas of lemon, jasmine, and apricot. I love to walk through them, smelling handfuls of the withering leaves.FIXING.

Makers of green teas bring all this aromatic activity to a halt when they "fix" the leaves, cooking them to keep them green. In the fruit and vegetable world, this reaction is called "enzymatic browning" and affects a host of ingredients including bananas, avocados, potatoes, and apples. If you slice open a potato, within a few minutes the exposed flesh will begin to darken. If you cook the potato, it will remain white. Tea makers similarly rapidly increase the leaves' internal temperature to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, deactivating the enzyme polyphenol oxidase, or PPO, that would otherwise turn them brown. (Another way to deactivate PPO is to deprive the enzyme of water, which it also needs to perform its duties. Uva ighlands Ceylon tea and First Flush Darjeelings desiccate so severely after harvest that they undergo what's called a "hard wither," drying out in heated troughs to such an extent that they become partially fixed, like green teas.) The fixing method impacts the tea's final taste. Imagine the difference between a steamed potato wedge and a browned, roasted one and you have a sense of the difference. j.a.panese green-tea makers steam their leaves in tunnels, giving the teas the more a.s.sertive, vegetal flavors of steamed spinach. Since World War II, some j.a.panese tea makers have begun steaming the leaves twice as long, for up to a minute instead of the traditional thirty seconds. The increase may seem slight, but it results in an even more a.s.sertive tea.

Certain Chinese green teas like Bi Lo Chun and Lung Ching have the lighter, slightly sweeter flavors of toasted nuts and steamed bok choy in part because Chinese tea makers sear the leaves over woks. The much hotter pans and ovens trigger what chemists call "the Maillard reaction." Named for Louis-Camille Maillard, the French chemist who first studied it at the turn of the last century, the reaction creates pyrroles, pyrazines, and other compounds tasting of baked peaches, roasted nuts, and similar baked or roasted flavors. A form of nonenzymatic browning, the Maillard reaction also darkens the teas somewhat.

Woks and ovens also give Chinese green teas a slightly wider range of aromas. Leaves reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit almost instantaneously when they are steamed, but they can take several minutes to heat up in a wok or a hot oven. Until they are fixed, the leaves continue to wither, producing yet more aromatic compounds. A comparison of the aromas in a j.a.panese Sencha and a Chinese wok-fired green tea shows that the Sencha has more lemony linalools, while the wok-fired tea has more carroty beta ionones and neriols, floral aromas more common to oolongs, which wither for a much longer period. Although Chinese green teas have nowhere near the aroma concentration of oolongs, they do have a slightly wider spectrum of scents than j.a.panese green teas.ROLLING.

After green teas have been fixed, and before black teas darken, tea makers roll the leaves to give them their lovely shapes. Once done by hand but now performed mainly by machine, rolling transforms the flat leaves into mesmerizing twists, coils, b.a.l.l.s, or spears. In general, lightly rolled teas have mellower and gentler flavors, while leaves rolled with greater pressure break up into smaller pieces and form brews that are more brisk and intense. Chinese tea makers have invented innumerable balletlike hand movements over the centuries to create dozens of leaf shapes. In the 1880s, the British developed rolling machines that saved labor but made far less distinctive shapes and less refined teas.OXIDATION.

Where rolling gives green tea leaves their lovely shapes, with oolongs and black teas it also provokes the reaction that darkens the leaves. Oolongs and black teas are not fixed green but are allowed to darken through a process called "oxidation." In the tea world, for centuries this process was mistakenly called "fermentation," on the a.s.sumption that yeasts or bacteria were involved. In fact, the reaction involves only polyphenols and oxygen.

In a healthy tea leaf, polyphenols reside in "vacuoles," small chambers inside the plant cells, ready to defend the leaf against damage from insects and other hazards. If insects munch on the cells, or strong winds bruise the leaves as they rub against one another, or a tea maker macerates a leaf during the rolling process, the vacuoles also break, releasing the polyphenols into the cells' cytoplasm. In the cytoplasm, the polyphenols encounter the enzyme polyphenol oxidase, or PPO. In green teas, this enzyme does nothing, as it gets deactivated when the leaves are fixed-heated to 160 degrees Fahrenheit to render the enzyme inoperable. In oolongs and black teas, however, PPO reacts with the polyphenols and oxygen to form brown-colored compounds. In nature, these polyphenols are thought to deter further attack by giving the insects a stomachache. Luckily for tea drinkers, polyphenols are delicious as well as lovely to behold. In tea, there are two princ.i.p.al types of polyphenols, each with its own flavor and color. Golden, brisk theaflavins are the first to emerge. Later, thearubigins develop, mellower and with a lovely copper hue. The slower the oxidation, the more thearubigins, the gentler the teas.

Oolongs oxidize more slowly than other teas. As a result, they have the most complex, mellow flavors. Oolongs start to oxidize when they wither, because tea makers gently fluff the leaves on tarps in the sun. This fluffing qualifies as a very light rolling, triggering oxidation along the edges of the leaves. Indeed, the gentle agitation is what gives oolong leaves their characteristic red tinge. With a head start on oxidation, the edges turn a darker red than the rest of the leaf. After withering, the leaves are rolled incrementally, in an elaborate stop-and-start oxidation that lasts for six hours or more. This gradual oxidation prolongs the withering, allowing for the creation of yet more aromatic compounds. The final flavors and aromas depend entirely on the amount of time the oolongs are given to wither and oxidize. Of the nine oolongs in this book, the first four oxidize only roughly 25 percent. They contain high concentrations of linalool, methyl jasmonate, and indole and thus have the citrus and floral aromas of lime, jasmine, and gardenia. The final five oxidize between 40 and 75 percent and develop more of the apricot and peach flavors typical of carotenoid degradation, the later-stage transformation of the pigment carotene into the apricotlike compounds ionones, damascones, and damascenones.

Chinese black teas share many of these apricot notes. Though they oxidize more quickly than oolongs because of stronger rolling, they still oxidize slowly enough to produce sweet, mellow thearubigin-rich teas. The oxidation is slowed not by interruption, but by limiting the leaves' access to oxygen. First tea makers roll the leaves very gently, keeping them as whole as possible so that most of the polyphenols stay in their vacuoles. Then they pile the rolled leaves into deep, finely woven bamboo baskets. They leave them there for hours, covered with cloth, so oxygen reaches the leaves only at a trickle. The result is a soft, nuanced tea with full, rounded body.

British Legacy Teas share a briskness that comes from being oxidized very quickly. Likely because the British have long preferred a brisk tea, tea makers in the former British colonies roll their leaves into much finer particles. They then spread the particles in thin layers, often blown with heated air, which maximizes their exposure to oxygen. Orthodox British Legacy Teas are allowed to oxidize longer and more slowly, so they have more complex aromas.

In contrast, British Legacy CTC teas are the most astringent of all, as they oxidize virtually instantaneously. CTC stands for "crush, tear, and curl," the three stages of the "rolling," or crushing, process: The leaves are not rolled but pulverized, crushed through a fine sieve to tear into tiny shreds that curl into fine pellets. These pellets pa.s.s along a conveyor belt under powerful blowers; within the s.p.a.ce of one hundred feet and a few hours, the pellets have switched, chameleonlike, from bright green to a flat, dull brown. These teas have almost no thearubigins; their tannic theaflavins make them robustly brisk and mouth-puckering. These teas taste so good with milk because the dairy proteins bind with the tannic compounds to soften them.

While oxidation turns buds gold, it darkens mature tea leaves almost to black. The source of the darker color is chlorophyll, which degrades during oxidation to murky brown pheophytins and pheophorbides. Buds contain very little chlorophyll, and what little they have dissolves during withering. For this reason, oxidation of buds reveals only the golden and coppery colors of degraded polyphenols.FERMENTATION.

Until recently, the process of oxidation was thought to be fermentation. Up until the mid-1900s, tea makers a.s.sumed that yeasts and bacteria turned tea black by converting sugars to alcohol the same way wines and breads ferment. In fact, only puerh tea ferments, and the puerh-making process is such a closely guarded secret that it's hard to know exactly how this happens. But we can speculate: As the teas age, sugars within the leaves are converted to monoterpenoids, which in turn oxidize and degrade over the years into sesquiterpenoids. Sesquiterpenoid compounds have the earthy and camphor flavors that puerhs are known for.FIRING.

The final step in tea production, firing preserves teas by almost completely removing any remaining moisture. "Drying" would be a more accurate term; if the leaves' moisture is reduced to 3 percent, the tea is stable and no more chemical reactions can take place. It can then travel. In ancient China that meant to the next province; now it means anywhere around the globe.

Depending on how heavily it is done, firing can also profoundly affect a tea's flavor. Today, teas are commonly dried in ovens or woks. The Chinese originally dried tea over wood fires, which is how the drying process got its name. Over time, wood was replaced with charcoal, a more enduring and even source of heat. Today, the only teas still fired with wood smoke are the Chinese black tea Lapsang Souchong and the oolong Da Hong Pao. By far the majority of teas are dried in electric ovens. Before all the moisture is lost, the heat of the dryers can provoke the same Maillard reaction that sweetens Chinese green teas. The Maillard reaction provokes the formation of dimethylpyrazines, which make for the chocolate and cocoa notes in New Vithanakande Ceylon tea and Keemun Chinese black teas. It also bolsters the honey and malt qualities of a.s.sams. The best teas have the finest roasted aromas because they have the most amino acids.

Firing can also take flavors away: Some of the floral aromas in green tea are too volatile to survive the heat of firing; aracha, aracha, or raw, unfired j.a.panese green tea, is often more aromatic than the finished version. In the last thirty years, as innovations in packaging materials have rendered heavy firings unnecessary, tea makers have begun experimenting with lighter and lighter firings, creating ever lighter and more aromatic teas. However, there is still a demand for old-school teas that have been heavily fired, just as there is still a market in the wine world for wines with an "oaked" flavor, even though technology has eliminated any practical need to store wine in oak barrels. or raw, unfired j.a.panese green tea, is often more aromatic than the finished version. In the last thirty years, as innovations in packaging materials have rendered heavy firings unnecessary, tea makers have begun experimenting with lighter and lighter firings, creating ever lighter and more aromatic teas. However, there is still a demand for old-school teas that have been heavily fired, just as there is still a market in the wine world for wines with an "oaked" flavor, even though technology has eliminated any practical need to store wine in oak barrels.SORTING.

After firing, tea makers sort the teas by leaf size by agitating the leaves through a series of screens. Whole leaves impart the fullest array of flavors; they are separated out first for the best-quality teas. The next smaller particles are called "brokens"; they make strong, brisk cups of tea. The smallest particles are called "fannings" and "dust." Fannings get their name from the fans that were once used to sort them: Before the age of machines, tea makers sorted the leaves by tossing them into the air from a large bamboo fan. The leaves light enough to blow off onto the floor were separated as fannings; the ones large enough to fall back into the fan were reserved as the best tea. Today, fannings and dust are set aside for teabags and instant teas. With only a few noted exceptions, all the teas in this book are whole-leaf teas.APPENDIX.

Tea Through Time: A Brief HistoryThe history of tea is more complex and spectacular than I can convey here, and I heartily recommend that you draw on other sources to get to know the ways the commodity has shaped our world. To educate your palate, it helps to get down a few facts, if only to allow you to understand why tea comes in so many forms.

Trying to establish when tea was first made-and in what form-is like trying to establish in what year Hades built the underworld. Tea marketers have every incentive to mythologize, hardly any to be accurate, and it all began so long ago. As a Taiwanese tea broker once admitted to me, "Legend works much better than fact if you want to keep a customer at the counter. There's much more to talk about."

We can say for certain that tea first grew wild in the Himalayan foothills, in what today are parts of China and India. Humans first started drinking tea approximately five thousand years ago in the mountains of southwest China in what is now Yunnan province. The first harvesters merely toppled the trees in spring, before learning how to pluck the bushes continuously. The dried leaves were preserved in tightly compressed cakes.

Cultivated initially for its medicinal qualities, tea was consumed as a kind of bitter green leaf vegetable soup, primarily by pract.i.tioners of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Simultaneously calming and stimulating, though also incredibly bitter, the crude beverage held devotees of all three religions in the ideal clear state of mind during their lessons and meditations. All three practices sprouted and flourished in China during the political turmoil of the latter end of the Zhou dynasty (1122-256 BC). Each school played an important role in the dissemination of tea from its mountain roots to the wider Asian continent, particularly Buddhism. As the religion spread eastward from the Himalayas into j.a.pan and Southeast Asia, tea went with it. Monks cultivated the tea, creating the first methods of propagation and selling the beverage to support their monasteries. They also taught area farmers how to grow their beverage. In the ninth century AD, while China was enjoying a fad for steam-fixed green teas, Buddhists first brought tea to j.a.pan from a monastery in China (see "Jin Shan," page 35). Three hundred years later, a j.a.panese monk named Eisai, who would found the j.a.panese arm of Zen Buddhism, brought over Chinese powdered green tea now known as Matcha.

Tea first flourished in j.a.pan around the imperial capital of Kyoto. The great tea gardens still stand in Uji on the outskirts of the city, planted there to serve the emperor's court as well as the capital's magnificent Buddhist temples. The j.a.panese made their teas according to the fashion in China during the Song and Ming dynasties, when tea first made its way from China to j.a.pan. The leaves were ground into a powder, whipped to a foamy froth in individual serving bowls, and pa.s.sed around in an elaborate, formalized ritual that has come to be known as "the j.a.panese tea ceremony," first codified by Sen Rikyu in the late sixteenth century. Rikyu used the ritualized presentation of tea as a lesson in wabi-sabi, wabi-sabi, the observation and appreciation of everyday objects. For centuries, Matcha served according to these rituals was consumed mostly by royalty, then the warrior cla.s.s of samurai, who adopted the contemplative philosophy aligned with the tea ceremony called Chado: "the Way of Tea." For the samurai, serving tea with full awareness provided physical and spiritual fulfillment, to both the giver and the receiver. Though the feudal government has long since fallen away, as a reflection of that smaller island's remarkable cultural stability, the nation continues to steam-fix its teas, many j.a.panese still drink powdered Matcha tea, and some still practice the tea ceremony. the observation and appreciation of everyday objects. For centuries, Matcha served according to these rituals was consumed mostly by royalty, then the warrior cla.s.s of samurai, who adopted the contemplative philosophy aligned with the tea ceremony called Chado: "the Way of Tea." For the samurai, serving tea with full awareness provided physical and spiritual fulfillment, to both the giver and the receiver. Though the feudal government has long since fallen away, as a reflection of that smaller island's remarkable cultural stability, the nation continues to steam-fix its teas, many j.a.panese still drink powdered Matcha tea, and some still practice the tea ceremony.

Meanwhile, the far more turbulent nation of China established its own tradition of tea-making innovation. Tea became a truly national drink there in or around the third to fifth centuries AD, when it finally lost its bitterness. Tea makers realized that steaming the leaves after harvesting made the tea much more palatable-and popular. Tea soon commanded the attention of emperors, who began demanding the best teas as tribute teas. Having a tea selected as a tribute tea guaranteed tea makers a fortune. Compet.i.tion for the emperor's attention proved a great incentive for the invention of new teas, a tradition of innovation that has lasted hundreds of years. As tea makers competed for imperial attention, white tea first emerged in the Song dynasty (960-1279); loose tea during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644); black tea and then oolongs in the early part of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Today, China still boasts the greatest variety of tea plant cultivars. The country's Tea Research Inst.i.tute lists 650-almost twice as many teas as the number of cheeses in France. By comparison, 90 percent of j.a.panese tea farms grow one cultivar called yabukita yabukita. And while the j.a.panese still steam their teas, as the Chinese did 1,200 years ago, Chinese tea makers have long since abandoned steam for hot air, woks, and wood fires.

Tea did not arrive in the Western world until the seventeenth century. As the first and second Europeans to make landfall in South Asia, the Portuguese and later the Dutch brought back the first teas to Europe. Tea became popular among the British aristocracy in the eighteenth century, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that the drink became indispensable to the British economy. Amid that century's industrialization, poor members of the working cla.s.s used tea and milk as a cheap vehicle for that other recent colonial import, sugar. Tea became yet more popular in the later part of the nineteenth century when the British temperance movement promoted it as a subst.i.tute for alcohol. Some conspiracy theorists posit that the temperance movement was a creation of the East India Company, the largest corporation in history and for many decades holder of the monopoly on Great Britain's tea export business.

The East India Company's work in China, to the Eastern country's detriment, proved far from peaceable. With the benefit of hindsight, some of its actions seem downright despicable. Nonetheless, the rough turn of events ultimately proved beneficial to the world of tea: The East India Company's voracious need for the dried leaves led to an explosion in the number of varieties available to us today.

In the early 1800s, as j.a.pan had closed its doors to international trade, China was the world's only source for tea. Thus, "all the tea in China" meant all the tea in the world. The Chinese guarded their tea-growing methods carefully: For over hundred years, the British believed green teas and black teas came from separate plants and read in their schoolbooks that the leaves were harvested by monkeys. (This misconception may account for the high number of Chinese teas whose names still include some allusion to primates, like the black tea Golden Monkey and the green tea Taiping HouKui, or Best Monkey Tea.) By the mid-nineteenth century, the British were drinking more tea than they could pay the Chinese for. As part of a larger series of events, Great Britain sent industrial espionage agents who literally stole tea plants-as many as a few hundred-to see if they could be grown in their new colony of India. After much trial and error, by the end of the nineteenth century they had established immense plantations in the Indian substates of Darjeeling and a.s.sam as well as the small island of Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka). Those same envoys who stole the plants also snuck into Chinese tea-making regions to observe their ancient methods of growing, harvesting, and shaping small batches of tea entirely by hand. The first British tea planters adopted these Chinese techniques but found they took too much time, labor, and money. So the British tea men, proud products of the Industrial Revolution, created more efficient, entirely mechanical ways to make teas, essentially inventing a new cla.s.s of brew. These machine-harvested, machine-processed black teas appeared in heretofore unseen quant.i.ties, darker and brisker than any teas before them. They are discussed in "British Legacy Black Teas," page 121.

These new plantations proved such a success that by 1906, the British were buying from China only 5 percent of the tea they had bought thirty years before. All the tea in China was now, for the most part, stuck in China. In no small part because of this catastrophic collapse in trade, by 1927 the once flourishing state of China had collapsed into civil war, with a new Communist regime emerging as the victor. The Communists initially proved disastrous for China's teas, placing thousands of small farms under largely inept state management and then isolating the entire country under an international trade embargo after the Korean War. In retrospect, the world of tea in fact benefited from these years of isolation. China's ancient tea-making traditions survived intact, when they might otherwise have been sacrificed to modernization. Western plantation methods did a fine job making certain basic styles of black tea, but they would have ruined the refined ancient teas of China.

China's traditional methods were preserved as well on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan), a hundred miles across the straits from Fujian province, to which some tea growers immigrated in the mid-1800s to establish a flourishing tea industry. Today, Taiwan produces some extraordinary teas, discussed in the chapter on oolongs, page 75.

It is remarkable how long some things endure. Popular myth still holds that the world gets its teas from India and China by way of Great Britain. I frequently get asked if Harney & Sons is a British company, as if that were proof of our quality. The truth is when British tea companies were evicted from India and Sri Lanka after World War II, the British brought tea to their colonies in Africa, primarily Kenya. Today, tea is grown in over thirty-five countries, including Indonesia, Turkey, and South Africa. Over 40 percent of the tea drunk in Great Britain comes from Kenya, while about 40 percent of the tea drunk in the United States is grown in Argentina. Most of those teas are destined for teabags (if not instant iced tea powder) and are not very good. The best teas available today-and with one Kenyan exception, all the teas in this book-come from Asia: China, j.a.pan, and Taiwan, as well as what we now call the British Legacy Teas from the former colonies of India and Sri Lanka.APPENDIX.

Tea SourcesAs interest in tea grows, more and more tea importers and tea shops have emerged. Here are the suppliers I most admire and the ones I encourage you to visit while shopping for the teas in this book.HARNEY & SONS FINE TEAS.

This is the company I run with my father, John, and my brother Paul. We're honoredto supply teas to some of the finest restaurants, hotels, and tea drinkers in the world.

The Railroad Plaza Main Street Millerton, NY 800-TEA-TIME (832-8463).

www.harneyteas.comIMPERIAL TEA COURT.

Roy Fong runs several terrific Chinese tea rooms in the San Francisco area. He was the first one to point me down the road of great Chinese teas.

1411 Powell Street San Francisco, CA 94133 800-567-5898.

www.imperialtea.comMARIAGE FReRES.

Founded in 1854, Mariage Freres is the oldest tea company in France. In the early 1980s, the Mariage family sold the firm to Richard Bueno and Kitti Cha Sangmanee. The two have inspired me to great heights ever since.

35, rue du Bourg-Tibourg 75004 Paris France www.mariagefreres.comNOTHING BUT TEA.

Nigel Melican is a treasure to the world tea industry, both for his deep knowledge and for his commitment to helping emerging tea regions. He runs this UK Web site with his daughter.

www.nbtea.co.uk (online only) (online only)RISHI TEA.

Joshua Kaiser started in the tea business less than a decade ago, but he keeps me on my toes with his smart sourcing.

www.rishi-tea.com (online only) (online only)UPTON TEA.

Based in Ma.s.sachusetts, Tom Eck supplies an encyclopedic variety of teas through his Web site.

www.uptontea.com (online only) (online only) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Many people helped me put this book together, especially since it was my first literary endeavor. First I want to thank my father, John. Without him there would be no book, as there would be no Harney & Sons. He introduced me to this special little world of tea, which has been my obsession for twenty years. I hope I can pa.s.s his enthusiasm on to the next generation of Harneys. James Norwood Pratt was an inspiration; I always enjoy his command of the language. Marcus Wulf of Germany's HamburgerTeeHandel tea brokerage firm has been a fellow traveler in tea for many years. Few in the world have his experience. He has been invaluable to this book, extraordinarily generous with his knowledge and contacts. He quizzed tea producers across the globe about current production methods for me. I tip my cup to him.

Other experts have proven indispensable: Tsuyoshi Sugimoto may be the most astute observer of j.a.panese teas. I always listen to his sage advice about j.a.pan's teas, past and present. w.a.n.g Shengdu is an expert on all the wonderful teas of Fujian province and hosted some long trips around that beautiful area of China. Lu Shun Yong has worked with the green teas of Zhejiang province for many years, yet he still looks so young. Shao Hui knows the back roads of Anhui province and makes a wonderful Keemun Mao Feng. Steve He almost gave away the secret of yellow teas from Junshan in Hunan province, but thought twice. Ashok Lohia of Chamong Group and his a.s.sistant, Ajay Kichlu, make some of the best Darjeelings in that region, and gave me great insight into Darjeeling production. Also quite helpful with current conditions in India were Subrata Basu of Jayshree and Soumitra Banerjee of the venerable Goodricke. Amit k.u.mar Sen of G.o.dfrey Phillips India and Krishan Kaytal of J. Thomas & Co. both elucidated the Calcutta brokers' viewpoint on Indian teas. Lalin Fernando and Amitha Wijiskera shed light on the delicious world of Ceylon teas. The intricacies of Taiwanese oolongs were revealed to me over the years (and many lovely cups of tea) by Hsiang Bin and George Shu. Peter Davies, a professor of plant biology at Cornell University, helped me articulate what really happens inside green tea leaves. After two decades in the tea trade, there are quite a few more people I would love to include here; I appreciate them and have pa.s.sed on their knowledge with this book as best I could.

As much as I have learned about tea, however, turning all my knowledge into a book required some alchemy. Ileene Smith thought I could be more than her child's hockey coach and introduced me to my agent, Melanie Jackson. Melanie saw the potential of this book, and I am thankful for her sage advice and her love of j.a.panese teas. I am so grateful to Ann G.o.doff and her talented a.s.sociates at The Penguin Press: Lindsay Whalen, Claire Vaccaro, and Tracy Locke. Most first-time authors do not have the honor of working with such a tremendous publishing team.

No one could ask for more, yet I got more. Emily Kaiser has been a treasure. I am grateful to Dana Cowin of Food & Wine Food & Wine for allowing her to do this project. Emily made my thoughts and words into the book it is today. What's more, her knowledge of the food world and her organizational skills made this book immeasurably better. It was a joy to teach her about tea. for allowing her to do this project. Emily made my thoughts and words into the book it is today. What's more, her knowledge of the food world and her organizational skills made this book immeasurably better. It was a joy to teach her about tea.BIBLIOGRAPHY.Ball, Samuel. An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1848.

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