We went on a learning trip organized by Chatime to the Highlands of Nantau in Taiwan to learn how to make Green Tea — from harvesting leaves from the Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis) to processing it properly.
It was an interesting and educational experience, and I would like to share with you the Making of Green Tea…
Flavors of Taiwan Series (2012):
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- The Making of Tea (Nantau, Taiwan)
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- Taiwan’s SHILIN MARKET: #1 Shopping Attraction in Taiwan!
- SHILIN MARKET Taiwan: Xiao Tze (Small Eats) Food Trip Guide
- XIMENDING Market (popularly known as the Harajuku of Taipei) 🙂
We first boarded a bus that took us to the highlands of Taiwan where they grow and make tea.
We arrived 3 hours after at the Tea Incense Farmhouse, which is a Tea Demo Farm by Chatime Taiwan.
Like coffee, tea grown in higher altitudes has a higher and more potent quality.
The top portion of the young tea plant is harvested to make the tea. Young tea plants have more flavor and they are considered mature after 3 years.
The tip of the plant is called one heart and two leaves, which is the inspiration behind the Chatime logo.
This is how the tea plants look like after the top parts are harvested.
There are 8 steps in the processing and making of the green tea.
First, the tea leaves are dried outdoors under the heat of the sun.
To make green tea, the leaves are not fermented (still color green) and are collected after drying.
(The half-fermented tea is called Oolong Tea, while the fully fermented tea is called Black Tea.)
They are collected in big layers of bilao since the leaves should not be too dry.
The leaves are then baked for 10 minutes…
…in a rotating 200oC oven.
The tea leaf feels warm and you can smell its aroma.
After, they are ground for around 45 minutes to extract the oil until the leaves become darker.
You can feel the extracted tea oils on the surface of the leaves.
They are then put in a drying oven with a thresher…
…where they are separated to give ample space for each leaf to dry.
They go through the conveyor…
…and come out as dry, dark green tea, ready for packing as loose leaf teas or for brewing directly.
There is a post-process to create different variants or forms of the tea.
After the tea-making demo, we were excited to eat lunch…
…with a lauriat of tea-inspired dishes!
Most of the tea-infused dishes were a bit bland. (I’m not sure if traditional Taiwanese cuisine tastes like this.)
We got to take home the green tea we created so we could enjoy the authentic green tea from Taiwan even after the trip.
Chatime grows its own tea plants in the highland region of Taiwan. The harvested leaves are then shipped and used in the Chatime Milk Teas we enjoy here in Manila.
To learn more on How to Make Green Tea, check out the video below:
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- TIAN WAI TIAN Hot Pot – The BEST Hot Pot I’ve Ever Tasted
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- Taiwan’s SHILIN MARKET: #1 Shopping Attraction in Taiwan!
- SHILIN MARKET Taiwan: Xiao Tze (Small Eats) Food Trip Guide
- XIMENDING Market (popularly known as the Harajuku of Taipei) 🙂
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Full Disclosure: The Green Tea Learning Trip was courtesy of Chatime Philippines. 🙂
P.S. Sharing with you our souvenir photo from our learning trip in Nantau, Taiwan:
This is a nice site. Makes me want to visit Southeast Asia.
Thanks to the people in that part of the world, most of the rest of the world knows about green tea and it’s many benefits. Research done by government agencies and others here in the United States shows that green tea consumption helps with weigh loss and burning belly fat. More information on this as well as another way to make green tea can be seen here: http://greentealose.com