CLIENT: San Francisco tea consultant and (former) owner of the Alpenglo teahouse
PROJECT: Ghostwrite an article on tea for company Web site
EXCERPT:
Just Your Cup of Tea
When it comes to tea drinking, the United States is centuries behind the rest of the world. Perhaps our addictive love of, and strong economic ties to, the drinking and producing of coffee have distracted us from the subtler benefits of tea. Or maybe we just rebelled against what the British were drinking (our most historic act involving tea, you remember, was the time we dumped loads of it in Boston Harbor). Whatever the reason for our past disinterest in tea, Americans are now making up for lost time: In the past decade alone, tea consumption in the United States has shot up an astounding one hundred percent! Americans are now discovering what people around the world have long treasured – the personal tranquility, pleasure to the taste buds, and health benefits of drinking a cup of tea.
You can easily enhance your tea-drinking experience by understanding the basics of tea and the art of brewing it. Our lesson begins with the four major types of tea: Whites, Greens, Oolongs, and Blacks. Interestingly, all these teas come from the raw leaves of the same tea plant, Camellia sinensis. What distinguishes each category of tea is its processing method. The way the leaves are processed – steamed, fermented (oxidized), dried, or bruised, gives the tea the special characteristics of its category. Tea spin-offs, such as scented, flavored, or blended teas, are produced using one of the four major types of tea as a base.
One term that has become part of our everyday lingo is “herbal tea.” Since you now know that tea only comes from the tea plant Camellia sinensis, you may be wondering how a tea can be herbal. It can’t be. A product has to be either herbal or tea based. In the tea industry, beverages made with herbs or flower parts instead of tea are often referred to as tisanes, or herbal infusions.
