Sahambavy tea

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in Madagascar. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Sahambavy — 1000–1400 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Fianarantsoa and its surrounding highlands sit high on the Malagasy plateau; the estate is on the escarpment below the town rather than on the plateau proper. The band brackets that drop rather than pinning the gardens to a figure.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Hand plucking — Removes selected young shoots at the tender break point, leaving mature leaf and unready shoots on the bush and delivering a uniform, undamaged intake to the factory.
2. 2. Trough withering — Drives conditioned air through a bed of leaf at a controlled rate, bringing the whole batch down to a target moisture level within a scheduled period.
3. 3. Orthodox processing — Twists and presses the leaf to rupture cells without severing it, preserving leaf integrity through oxidation and drying.
4. 4. Repeat rolling and roll-breaking (fu rou) — Breaks the compacted mass discharged from a roller, removes the fraction that is already sufficiently worked, and returns the remainder for further passes under a graded pressure schedule, so that rupture is distributed evenly across the whole intake.
5. 5. Controlled-environment oxidation — Holds ruptured leaf at a controlled temperature and near-saturated humidity with enough air movement to supply oxygen and carry away reaction heat, so oxidation proceeds evenly across the whole batch.
6. 6. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
7. 7. Sorting and grading — Separates finished leaf into fractions by size, density, colour and magnetic response, removing stem and foreign matter and producing uniform, tradeable lots.
8. 8. Blending to a standard — Combines separately manufactured lots in measured proportions against a retained reference sample, producing a batch that matches a fixed profile from variable inputs.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Orthodox black tea — Rupture first and let the reaction run. Heat arrives only at the very end, to stop something that has already been allowed to finish.

  Where it is practised: The whole of the fine black tea trade: Darjeeling, Assam's orthodox lines, Sri Lanka, Nilgiri, Nepal, Kenya's orthodox factories, and the Chinese gongfu black teas of Fujian, Anhui and Yunnan, which run the same shape with markedly gentler settings.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

• Hand plucking
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • raises Free amino acids
• Trough withering
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
• Orthodox processing
  • lowers Tea cream
• Repeat rolling and roll-breaking (fu rou)
  • converts Catechins
  • converts Leaf lipids
• Controlled-environment oxidation
  • raises Theaflavins
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 90–98 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  4–5 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 5 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Expecting a vanilla character because of where it comes from. The vanilla economy and the tea estate are unconnected, and any vanilla in a Madagascan tea was added deliberately after manufacture.

When the cup goes wrong

Written against black tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 19 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My chai catches on the pan or boils over — A scorched note runs through the finished drink, or the pan foams over the moment your back is turned.
• My chai is harsh and drying rather than rich — The drink is strong enough but unpleasant with it: a rough, drying grip on the tongue and a flat cooked note, rather than the round sweetness a good chai has.
• My chai tastes of hot spiced milk rather than tea — The drink is pleasant and sweet and the tea is nowhere in it — no colour to speak of, no briskness, and nothing that would tell you tea had been involved.
• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My iced tea tastes watery once the ice melts — The tea is good for the first mouthful and thin by the bottom of the glass.
• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

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