Organic Tea

Organic tea is the most healthy tea that you can drink.  In organic tea, you will find no additives and no preservatives.  In order to make a great organic tea for the consumers to purchase, the manufacturers first must rely on simple, pure ingredients.  The second thing that they must do is abide by the strict organic guidelines.  There are certain guidelines that must be followed in order for an herb to considered “organic”.  The third thing is the organic tea companies must abide by the ethics driven Fair Trade Policy. 

If you want to find a great organic tea, you must look at the ingredients. If there is a laundry list of ingredients, and most are not herbs, it is not an organic tea which you are drinking.  For example, if you are drinking organic White Tea, the first ingredient on the box should be White Tea.  If it is not, you are not drinking organic White Tea. 

Although there are so many types of teas available today, it is hard to believe that they all come from the same plant.  It is called the Cameilla Sinensis.  This plant is an Asian evergreen.  There are many factors which determine the flavor of the leaves.  Country, elevation, rainfall, and average temperature all have a role in the flavor of the tea, however, how the leave is processed and plucked has a much bigger influence.  Processing makes the difference whether your organic tea is white tea, black tea, oolong tea, or green tea. 

When Cameilla Sinensis is processed into an organic white tea, there is not much that is done to it.  It is the least processed of all of the organic teas.  It is gently withered and dried.  That is all there is to processing White tea.  When an organic green tea is processed, it takes a little more than the white tea does.  After the leave is plucked and withered, it is then steamed or heated briefly, then it is dried.  When making oolong tea, there is an extra step which needs to be taken.  This is called partial oxidation.  During partial oxidation, the leaves are bruised and exposed to the air for a controlled period of time.  This process give the oolong tea a taste which is somewhere between the green tea and the black tea.  The oxidation process for black tea is by far the longest.  First the black tea is withered.  After that they are rolled.  The next process in getting the black tea ready is that it must be fully oxidized.  This means that it must take more time than the oolong tea.  This is the process which gives the black tea its deep flavor.  Finally the black tea is dried.  This tea is the most flavorful tea of them all. 

With any plant, the soil has a lot to do with how it grows.  The soil with which organic plants grow is especially important to the plant.  There are very big differences in how the soil is handled for conventional plants as opposed to organic plants.  Tea plants can live for hundreds of years and must remain firmly implanted in the ground.  Because of this, they cannot be revitalized through a simple crop rotation.  The nutrients must be added into the soil and the plant to be sure that they do get in there.

Organic tea is a very healthy, delicious beverage.