The name of Chinese tea Thea sinensis was fixed with the light hand of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus, and thanks to him, Europeans still call this amazing drink that way. In 1758, they gave this name to the plant in honor of the Greek goddess of wisdom. And today a drink made from leaves collected from a tea bush is popular. People drink it with great pleasure, gaining vigor, freshness of spirit and clarity of mind.
Chinese tea: description, properties
Chinese tea bush is an evergreen shrub from the tea family (from Asia). Its leaves are used in the preparation of a tonic drink, which has long been the most common in the world.
Tea bush leaves contain up to that percentage of caffeine, which is about twice as much as coffee beans. In addition to leaf (long leaf), instant and pressed tea is produced. Its leading producers are India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and China.
Wild tea bush reaches a height of up to 9 meters,but it is cultivated in the form of bushes, growing no higher than 1.5 m, abundantly branching and carrying numerous elliptical or lanceolate finely toothed leaves. They have a length of 5 to 13 cm. The white flowers of the shrub emit a delicate pleasant smell. The leaves contain many vitamins (4 times more than lemon), caffeine, tannin.
Legends and historical facts
According to one of the legends, one Chinese ruler was the first to start drinking tea, who appreciated the unique fragrant smell of the leaves of the tea bush, quite accidentally showered into his pot of boiling water over a fire. After that, an incredibly wonderful aroma began to spread around. The tea bush was the owner of these leaves.
In an old Japanese tale, it is stated that fallen eyelids, the owner of which was a person, turned into tea leaves. He couldn't sleep, so he kept his eyes open all the time.
The Dutch first brought tea leaves to Europe in 1610, and tea came to England in 1664. London has since been considered the tea capital of the world. The average Briton drinks about 5 cups of this tonic per day. It first appeared in America in Boston in 1714.
Growing tea began in China in ancient times. Japan took up this in the Middle Ages, and then it began to be cultivated in Ceylon and India (1870). Since the 1880s, tea has been successfully grown in America (North Carolina and Texas), but due to the high cost of labor, this culturecouldn't get used to it. The tea bush was widely cultivated before the Second World War in the vast areas of China, Japan, India, Taiwan, Ceylon and Sumatra. Then tea plantations began to appear in other countries of the world.
Growing conditions
Tea is grown in fields and on terraced hillsides. Plants are usually formed by pruning, only seed specimens are not touched. In the East, the tea bush develops well with annual rainfall rates of approximately 2500 to 5100 mm. This plant loves a warm climate with an air temperature of 10–32 ° Celsius and moderate altitudes. Acidic soils are especially good for it.
In addition to a slight annual pruning in the spring, in the third year they usually produce light-heavy, and in the tenth - heavy (almost to ground level). The remaining part of the bush gives off shoots that form a denser plant with several main stems. As a result, every 40 days a good harvest is removed from it. A tea bush lives 25–50 years.
Tea comes in several varieties. In nature, it can represent a low tree. Some tea bushes can live up to 100 years. In the middle of summer (July), buds appear at the tea bush, and flowers bloom in September. Flowering continues for quite a long time, almost throughout the autumn, after which boxes are formed, inside which seeds ripen, which have a brownish color.
The youngest and juiciest leaves are harvested from the bush to make tea. These are the first three leaves and the upper bud, calledflushes. The latter are processed, after which different varieties of tea are obtained, depending on the way they are processed.
Tea bush at home
At home, this plant is very rarely grown, although it has many advantages: long-term flowering with snow-white fragrant flowers (several months), unpretentiousness, long life.
The most important thing is that the tea bush is not only beautiful and original, it also brings benefits with its leaves. Brewed tonic drink improves mood and gives strength and energy. Tea bush is quite easy to grow at home. You just need to take into account the conditions of its growth in nature and stick to them.
Special ways of drinking tea
Initially, the tea leaf was used as a vegetable seasoning, and in Burma it is still pickled. Pressed tea in the form of a brick or tile in Mongolia, after steaming in water, is eaten with butter or roasted barley and wheat groats (“tsamba”).
Some people drink tea with s alt. In Japan and China, there are religious tea ceremonies: Taoists use it as an elixir of immortality, and Buddhists drink it during meditation. The Japanese also add white jasmine flowers when brewing tea, the Thais chew the leaf, and in the Arab countries they drink tea brewed with mint.
Tea production waste also does not disappear, caffeine is extracted from them, which is used in medicine as a stimulant and is added tosoft drinks. One of the most popular drinks is iced tea. Such a soft drink is often drunk in the USA.
Tea bush varieties: dependence on harvesting and processing
The very first marketable products (“flashes”) are collected in the fifth year. Sometimes the 3rd and 4th leaves from the top are harvested if they are juicy and soft enough.
For the production of a black (well-fermented) product, first the leaves of the tea bush are withered on the racks, thus ensuring their weak oxidation, and then twisted, destroying the cell walls (oxidation continues). Subsequently, the leaves are subjected to fire drying in special baskets over burning charcoal or in specially equipped machines. If fermentation is not completed, then, depending on its depth, yellow or red tea is first obtained. By pre-steaming the leaves to prevent fermentation, green tea is subsequently obtained.
The highest grade of black tea is called pekoe, which translates from Chinese as "white hair". Thus, the most tender young (covered with fluff) leaves of the tea bush were designated.
Conclusion
It should be noted that in 1817 the first tea bush was planted in Russia (botanical Nikitsky Garden in the Crimea). By that time, the drink was very popular among Russians. Then they began to grow it in Georgia, and in the regions of Sochi it appeared since 1900.
Azerbaijani also appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. During the Soviet Union, about 100,000 hectares of territory were occupiedtea plantations, and processed products were produced up to 60 thousand tons per year.
