Black Tea
Black tea is a type of tea found all around the world, and drank popularly in most countries. Made from the Camellia Sinensis leaves, black tea is often stronger in flavor and has a higher caffeine content than the other lesser oxidized teas (green tea, white tea, oolong tea).
In many parts of Asia, black tea is known as “Crimson Tea”, due to the color of the liquid, which after steeping, isn’t actually black at all. Most attribute the naming of this tea to the color of the oxidized leaves, which are often black. In China, post-fermented teas are considered “black tea” (such as Pu-erh), but not normally in the US or most English speaking countries.
Black tea will last longer, if kept properly than green tea, often kept for several years without a noticeable decrease in quality of taste.
Throughout the centuries, it has been used as a currency (in Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia) a dye for clothing and now is served in many tea houses and homes around the world regularly due to it’s excellent health benefits (though, recent popularity has swung to green tea for this purpose, black tea still accounts for roughly 90% of the tea sold in the western world) and taste.
Black Tea Processing
After being harvested, the leaves are first withered by blowing air on them.
Then black teas are processed in either of two ways, CTC (Crush, Tear, Curl) or orthodox. The CTC method is used for lower quality leaves that end up in tea bags and are processed by machines. This method is efficient and effective for producing a better quality product from medium and lower quality leaves. Orthodox processing is done by hand or machine. Hand processing is used for high quality teas. While the methods employed in orthodox processing differ by tea type, this style of processing results in the high quality loose tea sought by many connoisseurs.
Next, the leaves are oxidized under controlled temperature and humidity. (This process is also called "fermentation", which is a misnomer since no actual fermentation takes place.) The level of oxidation determines the quality of the tea. Since oxidation begins at the rolling stage itself, the time between these stages is also a crucial factor in the quality of the tea.
The leaves are dried to arrest the oxidation process.
Finally, the leaves are sorted into grades according their sizes (whole leaf, brokens, fannings and dust), usually with the use of sieves. The tea could be further sub-graded according to other criteria.
The tea is then ready for packaging.
