Black Tea

What is Black Tea?
Black tea is a unique type of tea made from two different forms of the camellia sinensis plant: Camellia Sinensis Sinensis and Camellia Sinensis Assamica. The leaves are 100% oxidized, resulting in a dark, blackened color. There are two primary methods of processing the leaves before they are graded: Orthodox Method and CTC (Cut, Tear, Curl) Method.
Black tea is named for the tea soup and the bottom color of the tea turned red after its dry tea brewing. Aroma substances are significantly increased compared to fresh leaves. Therefore, black tea has the characteristics of black tea, red soup, red leaves and sweet taste. The originator of black tea is in China. The world’s first black tea was invented by the tea farmers in the Wuyishan tea area of Fujian during the Ming Dynasty in China. The main varieties are lapsang souchong, jin jun mei, dian hong tea, welcome to our loose leaf black tea store.

History of Black Tea
Until the mid 17th century (Late Ming, Early Qing Dynasty), the only teas consumed in China were green (unoxidized) and oolong (semi-oxidized). It was not until a passing army took shelter at a nearby tea factory that black tea was developed. The leaves were left out in the sun causing them to oxidize for a longer period of time and resulting in darker leaves. To accelerate the drying process, they decided to smoke the leaves over pinewood, creating Lapsang Souchong–one of the first black teas. Compressed post-fermented teas (pu-erh) were already known as “black teas” in China, but it wasn’t until Dutch and British traders started referring to Chinese “red teas” as “black teas” that this term became popularized. British traders then discovered Camellia Sinensis Assamica which could be cultivated by machine in India yielding bolder crops at a more lucrative return thus catapulting the Western tea industry to a new level.