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Camellia sinensis

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Camellia sinensis

The leaves of the tea plant make true tea: white, green, oolong, black, yellow, and related styles. The many categories come from leaf handling and oxidation, not from different tea species.1

In black-tea manufacture, withering lowers leaf moisture and rolling breaks cells so polyphenol oxidase can act on the leaf’s abundant phenolics. The cascade also alters proteins, chlorophyll, fatty acids, and carotenoids, building the dark color and much of the finished aroma; despite the customary name “fermentation,” microorganisms are not responsible for this step.23

  • Tea is both a drink and an ingredient: steeped liquid can season syrups, custards, broths, sauces, grains, and baked goods.
  • Store tea away from strongly scented foods; it readily absorbs odors.4

True tea prefers tropical to subtropical conditions, so it is not a routine field crop in the Northeast. Small-scale experimentation is possible in protected settings, but local tisanes are often more practical.5

Footnotes

  1. Washington State University, “Tea Types and Home Processing,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩

  2. Owen R. Fennema, ed., Food Chemistry, 3rd ed. (Marcel Dekker, 1996), PDF p. 1136. ↩

  3. John Vaughan and Catherine Geissler, The New Oxford Book of Food Plants, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 126 (PDF p. 161). ↩

  4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “Tea,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩

  5. Cornell Cooperative Extension Herkimer County, “The Story of Teas,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩