Jhapa CTC

Where it grows

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

• Jhapa — 60–300 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Nepali planted stock — Variety group not established

  Two distinct populations under one national heading: mixed old China-jat seed stock and Indian clones in the hills, assamica in the terai. Some hill gardens are young enough to be almost entirely clonal, and some are as old as Darjeeling's.

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. Mechanical harvesting — Severs the upper canopy at a fixed cutting height and conveys the cut material away, harvesting ready and unready shoots together.
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. CTC (crush, tear, curl) — Comprehensively ruptures and cuts the leaf into uniform granules, maximising surface area and speeding both oxidation and later extraction.
4. 4. 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.
5. 5. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

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.

• CTC black tea — The orthodox route with one slot filled by a different machine, and every other decision in the route reorganised around what that machine needs.

  Where it is practised: Assam, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Sri Lanka's low grades, Indonesia, Argentina, and the great majority of Indian domestic production. Nearly every teabag in the world contains tea made this way.

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.

• Mechanical harvesting
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • lowers Free amino acids
• Trough withering
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
• CTC (crush, tear, curl)
  • raises Tea cream
  • raises Theaflavins
• 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

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  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

• Assuming 'Nepali tea' means the hill orthodox teas. By volume it usually means this.
• Brewing it long. CTC extracts fast; past about three minutes it only gets rougher.

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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