Type of tea plant

Type of tea plant

The tea plant gained generic status of its own in the West in 1753 in the plant classification Species Plantarium by the famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linne (Linnaeus). He called it Thea sinensis, Chinese tea, and believed that green tea and black tea came from two different plants. Today this is known to be untrue: they come from the same plant. There are, however, subdivisions, for different types developed from the original, which is believed to have a large-leaved tree.

However, to compound the confusion, while there are not many varieties of plants, the variety of teas abounds. They reflect various strains, differences in topography, soil, and climate in diverse tea growing districts, and methods of processing. Authorities have cited between 350 and 500 varieties of teas. The prominent nineteenth century British botanist Sir George Watt defined four varieties of the tea plant, but most tea growers acknowledge only three, named for location: China, Assam, and Cambodia. The contemporary scientist J. R. Sealy says there are two, China and Assam. The Chinese classification of three differs little from the Western one.

In the Western classification, the China type is considered to be a bush, not a tree, mainly because it is multi-stemmed, though it can be fifteen feet high. It grows at high elevations, can stand cold winters, and produces for a hundred years, twice as long as other varieties. The leaves, about two inches in length, are the smallest of the three varieties, and are serrated and rather hard.

The scientific name for tea has been a matter of confusion. Some books list the plant as named by the famous Swedish botanist Linnaeus, Thea sinensis, because according to the International Rules of Nomenclature, the first name given a new species is always maintained. Others call it Camellia sinensis, relying on the studies of the prominent nineteenth-century botanist Sir George Watt, who on the basis of location and leaf and tree size concluded that it was a species of the genus Camellia. A 1958 study considered to be the definitive one on the taxonomy of tea, A Revision of the Genus Camellia, by J. R. Sealy, holds that the tea plant is an evergreen tree or shrub with eighty-one species, five of which are related to the tea plant. He calls it Camellia sinensis, and this is generally accepted as the standard today.

The Assam type, because it is single-stemmed, is considered a tree, and can reach a height of forty-five to sixty feet. The leaves range from six to fourteen inches in length. One of its sub varieties is the dark-leafed Assam which grows at high altitudes at Darjeeling, India. The fine down on its leaves gives its product the name Gold Tipped Darjeeling, considered to have a very delicate flavor and known as "the champagne of tea" The large-leafed trees that grow in China's Yunnan province are of the Assam type.

The Cambodian type, growing to about fifteen feet, is also considered a tree, and is used mainly to cross with other varieties. The Chinese classifications are (not in exactly the same order) bush, tree-bush and tree.

Scientists currently believe that all of the different types of tea descended from one center, probably located near the source of the Irrawaddy River in Burma, and gradually spread throughout Southeast Asia in a fanlike movement.

Tea is grown commercially in a belt that circles the earth on either side of the equator. "Superior tea comes from high mountains," is an old Chinese saying, but the best places lie in mountains below 6,000 feet. The altitude and mountain mists help protect against excessive sunlight and create the right temperature and humidity to enable the leaves and buds to develop slowly and remain tender. Thus they produce a higher content of caffeine, amino acids, and essential oils. The frost, heat, and dampness of the lowlands are not conducive to good growth. At a daily mean temperature above 68 ^oF (20 ^oC) the buds are rough and age rapidly.

Many of China's most famous teas come from well-know mountains: Wuyi (Fujian), Lushan (Jiangxi), Emei (Sichuan), and Huangshan (Anhui). Tea plants grow best in an acid soil of pH4.5 to 6.5 with a moisture content of 70% to 80%, and air humidity above 70%.

Tea has been cultivated commercially in China for at least eighteen hundred years and in Japan since 800 A.D. It grows from Hainan in the remote south as far north as Shandong province in more than a thousand countries in seventeen provinces (Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang) and the Tibet andGuangxi Zhuang autonomous regions. Zhejiang, Hunan, and Sichuan rank first in order of importance, and Anhui and Fujian are also big producers. South of the Yangtze River, tea plucking can go on for seven months a year, and on Hainan Island, all year round.

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