Tea

Tea is a drink made with dried leaves and boiling water.

Tea leaves are picked from tea bushes.

Tea grows in hot places.

The leaves are picked by hand.

The leaves are dried.

Tea is a drink made by pouring boiling water over dried leaves of the tea plant.

The flowers of the tea plant are small, white and smell sweet. From each flower, three seeds are formed.

Wild tea plants grow to about 9 metres tall, but on a plantation (farm) they are pruned and kept at a bit over 1 m high.

Growing Tea
Tea is an evergreen plant that grows in warm tropical places like Indonesia, India and Malaysia. The plants do not produce the necessary shoots in cold places. The best tea is grown on low hills about 900-2000 metres high because the plant grows more slowly in the cooler air, which increases the flavour.

Tea is grown commercially in large farms called plantations. New plants are started from cuttings. After about a year, the 20cm high seedlings are moved to the fields, where over 6 000 plants grow in each hectare.

Within about 4-5 years the plants mature and produce a flush, or growth of new shoots, which are several leaves and a bud.

The flushes are picked by hand. Mechanical harvesters have been developed for flat land, but the best teas are picked by hand.

Processing the tea
The leaves are processed differently to produce the three main kinds of tea: black, green and oolong.

Black tea is made by spreading the leaves on shelves called withering racks. Air is blown over them to remove moisture, then they are crushed between rollers to release their juices. They are placed in a fermenting room where the leaves change to a copper colour in controlled humidity, then they are dried in ovens and turn black.

Green tea is made by steaming the leaves in large vats, which prevents them from changing colour. The leaves are then crushed in a machine and dried in an oven.
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Oolong tea is made by only partly fermenting the leaves, giving them a greenish black colour.

Grades of tea

Tea leaves are graded according to size. The leaves are shaken through screens with different size holes to sort them into sizes. The larger leaves are selected for loose tea and the smallest for tea bags.

The tea is packaged into large wooden chests lined with aluminium foil, ready to be transported. Chests of tea are sold at auctions. Teas from different countries or areas each have different tastes and quality. To make the best tea, tea companies blend a number of different teas to develop a particular flavour.

There is a legend from China about the discovery of tea:

A Chinese Emperor ordered everyone to drink boiled water for their health. One day, as the water for his drink was boiling, some leaves from a nearby tree fell into the pot. When the Emperor drank the water he was overjoyed with this new drink, which he named 'tea'.

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Tea (2001). [Online], Available:www.kidcyber.com.au