Quality Tea, what does this mean?

Quality Tea, what does this mean?

Tea Adventure offers the highest quality teas. What exactly is quality tea?

Tea can roughly be divided into 3 segments:

Bulk Tea

The first segment is that of bulk tea. The tea leaves are chopped so that they fit into teabags. This tea is especially about packaging and marketing. This segment is generally of relatively low quality tea. In China this tea is often describes it as "tea-dust". Tea plantations are using a machine to process the tea leaves and to split the proper tea poor quality leaves. They let the tea leaves fall in the machine and a fan blows air through it simultaneously. On one side of the machine the ‘dust’ comes out and underneath the machine the tea leaves are falling in a bowl. After finishing, they take a sweeper and sweeps all the dust in the bushes: "Dust we cannot use our teas. However, this substance is used in the process of bulk teas.

Also, the bulk tea is not handpicked. A mowing machine cuts off the upper layer of the tea bush. These twigs are mauled into the tea. With premium tea the leaves are handpicked, to ensure that the best tea leaves will be processed.

Brand Teas

The second segment is that of fine teas and is also characterized by strong marketing efforts. Famous names in this segment are Twinnings and Earl Gray. These teas are teas from India, since there is still this connection between England and their former colonies. However, some of these tea leaves come as well from Kenya and Brazil. They are usually blends of different teas or tea mixed with a flavour of an herb or fruit. Moreover, these teas are generally nicely packaged in pyramid tea bags and well-designed boxes. The brand teas are very dependent on the brand names and are beautifully packaged products which are easy to drink. The second segment has many good teas but few premium teas. In this category they use middle quality teas, where the brand and packing have a more important role than the quality of the tea leaves.

Premium Tea

The third segment, where we specialize in, the market for high quality teas: Premium Teas. These teas are characterized by being hand-picked, organically grown, and that the tea leaf determines a certain type of tea. Premium teas usually grow at high and inaccessible areas where the climate is hot and humid and with a rich soil. Depending on the type of soil and the type of climate different taste variances occur (like with good wine). This largely explains why premium teas often is linked to one region, beside this region they are hardly cultivated. Premium teas are a personal choice, like premium wines.

Fine teas are named after their brand names, premium teas are linked to the leaf type and place of origin. Premium teas are usually sold through special suppliers within the specific region.

With premium teas are the ingredients irreplaceable. For bulk tea and fine tea ingredients can be exchanged and blended.

Tea-adventure seeks, finds, selects and promotes premium teas for the true tea lover!