What Makes Chinese Tea Special
There was a time when tea only came from China, and if you wanted tea it came from China. Nowadays, tea is grown all over the world from Hawaii to Peru to Rwanda. So if you can get tea from all over the world, what makes Chinese tea so special?
For me it comes down to three things: historical heritage, variety and diversity, and small scale artisanal production traditions.
China’s Historical Heritage of Tea Making and Appreciation
China is the original land of tea. The first tea trees are attributed to the wild ancient tea trees grown in Yunnan.
Tea is deeply ingrained into the history of the country, and tea traditions are still very much a cherished part of everyday Chinese life. China loves to boast about its 5,000 year history and the crazy thing is tea has been a big part of that long history each step of the way.
Chinese Tea: An Abundant Variety and Diversity of Teas
While some countries specialize in producing specific kinds of teas (for instance Japan is all about green teas and Sri Lanka is pretty focused on black teas), China’s vast and diverse rural areas are conducive to growing and producing all different categories of tea.
China produces the full range of tea: white, green, yellow, oolong, black, and pu’er teas.
Different regions in China specialize in certain and specific types of tea (remember we talked about terroir and tea?) and the variety among the regions is quite exciting.
Not only are there the full range of teas, flavor notes, and tastes for you to explore within Chinese teas, you can try all sorts of different flavors within one category of tea. For instance, China has hundreds of different regions specializing in different types of green tea. HUNDREDS.
Where Small Family Farms Still Dominate Tea Production
Even with China’s large variety of teas, while many other countries have large-scale tea manufacturing industries, the tea industry in China still very much relies on regionally specialized, small-scale practices.
The majority of Chinese tea comes from small family-owned farms, where hand-picking and hand-processing tea has been the family business for generations. I know it is hard to believe for a country so well-known for large scale manufacturing, but the tea industry in China is really still overwhelmingly produced at the small family or village-scale where teas are hand-picked and hand-processed in small batches.
You can see photos of one the small-family operations I used to work closely with together with here for an idea.
China’s uniquely structured tea production which is still largely the result of small scale specialization in one specific type of tea is in contrast to countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya where tea production is large scale plantations (with a colonial history) that produce a number of different teas in the same place.
So those are the top three factors I think make Chinese tea so special–but really you should take a sip of some great Chinese tea and taste the difference for yourself!