Green Tea Fundamentals Pt 1: Regions & Varieties

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and ordered a green tea by name? It’s pretty uncommon to have more choices than “green or black,” but there are actually a vast spectrum of green tea varieties in the world.

Green tea can range from strongly savory, to delicately floral, to rich and fruity and any combination thereof. Fresh, fragrant, and cleansing, a good green tea offers a full sensory experience reminiscent of where it’s grown.

The endless variations in green tea arise from four fundamental elements:

1. Region and Plant Variety
2. Harvest Season
3. Processing Method
4. Brewing Method

This post is an introduction to the first two elements: garden region and plant variety.

Green Tea Regions

If you are a wine drinker, maybe you have heard of the term “terroir,” referring to the impact of the local growing environment on the final beverage. Terroir is just as important for tea. Usually the highest-prized green teas are grown at high elevation, in places with misty weather or cloud cover, resulting in tender leaves with a special flavor. Soil quality and weather through the year also contribute to the tea flavor and fragrance.

Green Tea Varieties

Although all tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant, there are many different cultivated green tea varieties. A collection of different green teas, all called “Dragon Well Green Tea” may each be made from different varieties of the tea plant. 

That being said, there are often original plant varieties associated with each type of famous tea. For example, our Mountain Green Tips (Mao Feng in Chinese) is from the tea region of Wuyi County in Zhejiang Province, and is made from a traditional local green tea variety called Jiu Keng. Farmers have been growing and producing Mao Feng Green Tea there for over 100 years.

The two elements of region and variety are closely tied, due to the evolution of tea. People experimented with local tea plant varieties to find the processing methods that worked best for that plant and the local weather. Famous teas spread due to their success, but transplanting a certain plant variety to a new climate is not always successful. Similarly, it does not always work to use a different region’s processing method on the tea leaves.

Authenticity

An additional complication is the fact that many products on the market for the big-name tea styles are actually lower quality and were grown outside of the traditional region for their style. Experience allows seasoned tea lovers to identify authentic tea, but newer tea drinkers should find someone they trust to guide them, so they can develop a sense of what each famous tea should taste and smell like.

We at CC Fine Tea are proud to share real, high-quality tea. If you want to learn the flavor of authentic green tea, this is a good place to start.

We hope you found this article interesting and helpful. Keep an eye out for our next post, which will be on harvesting and processing green tea! Happy sipping until then!

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