High-quality, loose-leaf, specialty tea refers to tea where the exact type with detailed information is sold (e.g., Da Hong Pao) instead of just some random leaves (e.g., Black Tea).
All tea is made from a single plant which also means that what is commonly referred to as tea in the West (ginger, mint, camomile) is as similar oat milk is to milk. At the same time, I am also saying ginger tea so there’s also no reason to be pedantic about it as long as this is known. And in any case, despite the hot water, there’s not much similarity between tea and herbal infusions while there’s also nothing wrong with the latter – it’s just different things.
From the single plant, six general types of tea can be made:
Red in most of Asia) (Hong Cha)The interesting thing about it is though that it’s all made from the same plant called Camellia sinensis and the only thing that differs is the picking and processing style. In theory, all of the above could be made from a single plant while just as in wine, certain cultivars and terroirs lend itself better to specific types. Here’s an overview over the basic steps per category:
The main process to get from one to another type (although there are way more things that producers can do) is oxidation. In Mandarin Chinese, the words for oxidation and fermentation are the same which led to the erroneous assumption in the West that most tea is fermented. While there is fermented tea (Dark tea (Hei Cha)), in general the important process is oxidation (i.e., oxygen causing mainly the polyphenols in the plant to fall apart or be converted). This means that producers will purposefully bruise the harvested leaves to promote stronger oxidation since more oxygen from the surrounding air will penetrate the leaf. Eventually, the oxidation is stopped as each type of tea and producer has a target oxidation level (can be under 5% as in green tea to over 80% in black tea). Once the target level is reached, heat is added (in various ways) which causes the chemical process to stop or at least slow down to a minimum. I made this diagram for one of my tea tastings that summarizes it:
Tea has many parallels with wine (not in terms of flavor) such as: