Mauritian vanilla tea

Where it grows

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

• Bois Chéri — 400–600 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. The Mauritian central plateau is modest in altitude by tea standards. It is enough to make the interior markedly cooler and wetter than the coast, which is the whole agronomic argument for growing tea there.

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. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Oxidation — Allows polyphenol oxidase to act on leaf polyphenols after cell rupture, converting them into the larger coloured compounds that give oxidised tea its colour and body.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
5. 5. 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.
6. 6. Applied flavouring — Deposits volatile aroma material onto and into dry finished leaf by mechanical distribution and subsequent equalisation, without any exchange with a living or fresh source material and without altering the base tea's own manufacture.

The route it is made by

Not applicable — A finished black tea with flavouring applied. Its own record carries `processing-s33-flavour-application` as a final step; what happened before that is whatever the base lot went through.

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.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Oxidation
  • converts Carotenoids
  • converts Catechins
  • converts ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • converts EGC (epigallocatechin)
  • converts EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • converts Epicatechin
  • converts Linalool
  • creates Beta-damascenone
  • creates Beta-ionone
  • creates GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Tea cream
  • creates Theaflavins
  • creates Thearubigins
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Geraniol
  • raises Nerolidol
  • lowers Anthocyanins
  • lowers Theogallin
• 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

• Reading the vanilla as a defect or a tourist product. It is what the domestic market drinks.
• Judging the plateau's terroir through a flavoured cup. The vanilla is doing most of the work and no amount of careful brewing will separate them.

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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