6 Different Types Of Tea: What Makes Them Different?

August 18, 2017

Most people in the United States have heard of green and black teas. Some have even tried oolong teas or white teas. But what about Pu-Erh teas? What are yellow teas? And what actually makes all these types of tea different?

Well, buckle your seatbelts tea lovers, it’s a whirlwind of tea knowledge coming at you!

fresh green tea leaves
Fresh-picked tea leaves

Green Tea

Green teas bring forward the freshest notes of tea flavor. Fresh picked leaves are taken to the processing facility, where they will be heated. This heating, called “kill green,” prevents the enzymes in the leaves from continuing fermentation.

Then the leaves are rolled and shaped, fully dried, and packaged. This simple process combined with the very low fermentation (typically 3% and below) defines green teas.

Black Tea

withering black tea leaves
Tea leaves withering for black tea

Black tea is usually sweeter and richer tasting than green tea. Rather than stopping fermentation as soon as possible, black teas are ‘withered’ and allowed to ferment longer. This added step changes the characteristics of the tea so much that few of the original green tea flavor compounds remain by the time it becomes black tea. The high fermentation (typically with percentages in the 80s) and the simple processing define black teas.

Oolong Tea

Oolong is the broadest category of tea. Within the oolong category, you find robust, charcoal-roasted teas, delicate floral teas, teas that pop with citrus, or those that are sweet and deep like dried figs.

The most telling characteristic of oolong teas is that they are complex. More than simple drying and fermentation, these teas have 7 to 10 steps in their processing including roasting, various methods of bruising, and complex shaping. This large category typically spans the divide between green and black teas: 5 to 80 percent fermentation.

White Tea

living tea bud
Young tea sprout

White tea is the most soft, delicate, and refreshing type of tea. It is the least processed and contains young leaves with a high proportion of buds.

White tea is picked, allowed to wither, and then gently heated to dry. The rolling and shaping present in other teas is left off for white tea. Because this tea does undergo withering, it has a higher fermentation percent than green tea, usually 10 – 30 percent.

Pu-Erh Tea

Pu-Erh Cakes
Pu-Erh cakes stored in bamboo wrappings

The most famous style of fermented tea is Pu-Erh. At its simplest, Pu-Erh is fermented green tea. But wait, isn’t all tea fermented already? That’s correct, but Pu-Erh undergoes a secondary fermentation… think wine or yogurt.

Pu-Erh comes in two main styles: Sheng (green, raw) or Shou (black, ripe). Raw Pu-Erh has a low level of moisture left in it and naturally ages from a fresh and aroma-packed greenish tea to one that is woody, fruity, and complex. Ripe Pu-Erh follows the same processing steps as Raw Pu-Erh, and is then piled up and carefully tended to finish processing, in an accelerated aging process.

Yellow Tea

Yellow tea is the most uncommon category of Chinese teas and has an interesting middle step of steaming a partially fermented green tea under a damp cloth. It is this step that produces a yellow-colored tea liquid and gives it the taste of a mild raw Pu-Erh.

While the descriptions above are the most important guidelines to distinguish the different categories of tea, there are many variations that contribute to each group. For example, there are many different cultivars of teas and while any cultivar can be made into any type of tea, generally there are specific varieties used to make specific types of tea. This reinforces how we view and taste tea.

There are also those teas that are blends of styles. For example, an oolong processed tea that is fermented all the way to 85% fermentation is somewhat of a hybrid of categories. There is always an exception that proves the rule!

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Tags: Bamboo, black tea, green tea, Oolong, oolong tea, Pu-Erh Tea, Raw Pu-Erh, Ripe Pu-Erh, tea processing, white tea