Close your eyes and consider tea, and until you grew up in a tradition the place inexperienced tea is extra well-liked—like in China, Japan, or Korea—you’re in all probability picturing one thing that appears just like the photograph above. From the US to the UK to Russia to Turkey, black tea is often the extra well-liked selection of tea.
Unfortunately, a lot of the black tea generally bought within the West isn’t excellent—overly bitter and tannic but curiously bland. No surprise many Americans deal with tea as a low-octane also-ran to espresso, and it is no shock most of us stir in a great deal of lemon, milk, or honey to make it style like one thing.
That’s a disgrace, as a result of nice black tea is rather a lot just like the intersection of two drinks most Westerners love: high quality espresso and good purple wine. Stimulating but lush with hints of ripe fruit, chocolate, nuts, and citrus, mellow and candy however charged with a tongue-tingling efficiency, top-notch black tea is greater than price your consideration.
The trick is getting the appropriate leaves and brewing them with care. Here’s a quick introduction to upping your black tea recreation.
Making the Grade
No matter the place and the way a black tea is grown, it is all processed the identical manner: withering and bruising contemporary leaves to encourage oxidation, then drying. This oxidation begins the second a tea leaf is plucked off the bush, and the enzymatic exercise is answerable for increase black tea’s wealthy colour, plush physique, fruity sweetness, and tannic complexity.
So what makes one black tea totally different from one other? Part of the reply is regional variations in terroir and cultivation, however the single largest issue is a tea’s grade. Generally talking, tiny damaged leaves = decrease grades = a rough, blustery brew, whereas bigger unbroken leaves = greater grades = a extra delicate, nuanced, and sophisticated drink. Especially excessive grades additionally have a tendency to include larger quantities of younger buds or “suggestions,” which will increase the tea’s price (there’s just one bud per shoot on a tea plant versus many older leaves). But these buds add considerably to a tea’s depth of character and distinctive taste.
Tea has all the time been sorted into high quality ranges, resembling by relative quantities of buds, however trendy grading of black tea by dimension is a comparatively latest consequence industrialization. As British (and later, American) entrepreneurs experimented with rising tea in India, they developed extra environment friendly and economical methods to course of tea leaves. Chinese producers are inclined to preserve tea leaves entire, however Western plantation house owners discovered they might speed up tea oxidation by crushing and tearing leaves into smaller items. Broken tea leaves additionally yielded a extra uniform, homogeneous taste, a significant bonus for mass-market manufacturers trying to create a constant product. And decrease grade leaves have extra floor space, too, so that they brew quick and darkish, a useful asset for a sizzling new invention that burst onto the scene within the early 1900s: the tea bag.
These practices proved wildly profitable, and nowadays the overwhelming majority of tea made for the Western, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern markets is comparatively low grade, finely damaged black tea leaves that brew up darkish, brisk, constant, and, objectively talking, comparatively devoid of particular person character.
Now, for plenty of folks, a daring, easy tea is strictly the purpose. You want one thing as darkish and potent as potential to chop via all of the milk, sugar, and spices in a cup of correct Indian chai, and in Turkey and Russia, each black-tea-loving nations, darkish, bitter, concentrated brews are the drink of selection. And all around the world, tea baggage are a simple method to get a cheerful caffeine repair. There’s nothing flawed with a constant and dependable product; it is simply that there is extra to black tea past that consistency.
If you are on the lookout for one thing slightly extra advanced and wine-like, greater grade unfastened leaf teas are the way in which to go. Go one step additional and you could find “single property” or unblended teas that protect rising areas’ particular person traits—similar to single-origin espresso beans or unblended wines. Here’s the place issues get fascinating.
The Great Wide World of Black Tea
We all know what black tea tastes like. There’s a ripe golden fruitiness that registers with a raisin-like sweetness on the tongue. There’s an astringency and, typically, a mild lingering acidity on the palate, plus a richer, extra velvety physique than lighter teas. “Brisk” is a frequent descriptor: that refreshing crispness that retains the tea’s sweetness from turning cloying. That purple wine comparability beginning to make extra sense? Good.
Because similar to purple wine, there are black teas with kind of physique, kind of sweetness and astringency, and variations in secondary notes from citrus to florals to overripe fruit, and roasted nuts or chocolate. If you are trying to dig deeper into these subtleties, listed here are a couple of key types that present the vary of what black tea has to supply.
South Asia
Ceylon: ‘Ceylon’ teas actually simply imply teas grown on the island of Sri Lanka. Unlike their Indian neighbors, Sri Lankan growers extra closely favor whole-leaf black tea types (although each international locations produce high- and low-grade tea), and whereas Ceylons vary enormously in high quality, they have an inclination towards sunny teas that always brew up glowing orange with average physique. The greatest Ceylon teas are well-balanced: citrus or nutty excessive notes mellowed by a mild heat that avoids heavy astringency. They’re nice to drink plain or with a touch of milk, no sugar required.
Darjeeling: The West Bengali district of Darjeeling grows India’s most prized tea: an origin-protected model from bushes initially smuggled out of China as a result of the British could not replicate the fragile candy florals of their favourite Chinese teas. High up within the Himalayas, Darjeeling tea advantages from a singular terroir that yields a wine-like sweetness that many evaluate to floral muscat grapes. The particular flavors of Darjeeling tea change via its rising season, so some are extra contemporary and piney whereas others develop extra brooding wooden cask notes, however total, Darjeeling teas are low-astringency and particularly advanced. Unfortunately, that reputation has led to a whole lot of fakes; there’s way more Darjeeling bought in the marketplace yearly than the district of Darjeeling may probably produce. This is one tea the place it particularly pays to know your vendor.
Nepalese: Many of these Darjeeling fakes in reality come from Nepal, the place related rising situations, fast-rising requirements for export tea, and a decrease price of labor imply a extra budget-friendly different to the nuance of true Darjeeling. Many Nepalese teas—branded as resembling an rising market—exhibit robust chocolatey qualities together with a barely extra rustic model of Darjeeling’s candy wine notes. High-altitude teas like Nepal’s (and Darjeeling’s) even have a singular misty, ethereal high quality; shut your eyes, breathe deep, and you may really feel such as you’re standing proper in these mountainous tea gardens.
Assam: After Darjeeling, Assam tea is India’s most well-known, although in some ways it is the polar reverse. Grown in sunny lowlands from the stronger large-leaf Camellian SINensis var. assamicAssam teas (named for the Indian state the place they’re grown) exemplify the daring, brisk facet of black tea, whether or not you are ingesting tiny damaged “crust-tear-curl” types or or greater grade entire leaf variations. High in astringency and acidity, they’ve a thick, lipsmacking physique that, when brewed robust, could make you neglect all about espresso.
China
Keemun: One of China’s extra well-liked teas within the West, Keemun tea presents a number of the astringency and physique of an Indian tea, however with a richer malt and darkish cocoa character brightened by delicate florals (assume extra orchid than perfumed jasmine or rose) and sometimes a refined smokiness gained throughout processing. An excellent workaday tea, it is a becoming introduction to the Chinese strategy to Hong cha (“purple” tea), the Chinese time period for black tea so named for the colour of the tea’s brew.
DIANG HONG: While pu-erh will be the value of Yunnan province, it is solely one of many teas you may discover there. See additionally diang hong, aka Yunnan Gold, which some think about to be the best black tea on Earth. It’s usually {smooth} and rounded on the palate, much less brisk and astringent than Indian black teas, and is filled with chocolate sweetness that, in high quality variations, is velvety and long-lasting.
Jin Jun Mei: Another prime quality tea from China, this time the Wuyi mountains, the place teas that develop on rocky cliffs develop distinct mineral flavors to enhance deep honey notes and, in really prime quality jin jun mei, intense sweetness. Top-notch jin jun mei is filled with golden suggestions and may yield deep, lasting honeylike finishes in your throat. Like many nice Chinese black teas, it is {smooth} and rounded however highly effective stuff.
Lapsang Souchong: This tea is a smoke bomb, constituted of Chinese black tea leaves dried over smoky pine hearth. Low high quality variations can style as harsh as lighter fluid, however in higher lapsang souchong, the leaves’ inherent sweetness stands as much as the smoke for a potent campfire brew that warms your cheeks like a great Scotch. The authentic lapsang souchong hails from these minerally Wuyi mountains, like jin jun mei, however nowadays the tea is produced throughout.
Where to Buy It
Now that you have seen a few of what the broader world of black tea has to supply, listed here are some commendable distributors price looking for out.
- Upton Tea Imports: All kinds of black teas from 13 international locations, together with some rarer choices like Japanese black tea, however the delight of the gathering will be the Darjeelings, which embrace a number of the district’s highest regarded tea estates.
- Simpson & Vail: A fantastic number of Nepalese black teas for these on the lookout for excessive elevation Himalayan types loaded with cocoa, pine, and that signature excessive elevation mistiness.
- Verdant Tea: Chinese black teas from well-liked areas (Wuyi) and extra obscure (Laoshan), all fragrant and smooth-drinking. There’s an inexpensive jin jun mei that makes a wonderful introduction to nice Chinese black tea, and a smoked Wuyi tea that reveals simply how good lapsang souchong-type teas can get.
- In Pursuit of Tea: High high quality choices from China, Sri Lanka, and India. One enjoyable factor to strive with this vendor: evaluating two flushes (harvests) of Darjeeling from the identical property, which may present how the tea’s taste evolves over the rising season.
- Song Tea: Excellent high-end Chinese black teas that you simply will not discover from most different Western-facing distributors. Also some exemplary renditions of Taiwanese cultivars that deliver heat honey and macerated cherry flavors alongside for the journey.
Disclosure: Some tea samples offered for assessment.
