Zimbabwean black tea

Where it grows

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

• Chipinge — 600–1200 metres

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

• Honde Valley — 700–1400 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.

• East African seedling tea — Camellia sinensis var. assamica

  Genetically varied field by field and bush by bush, deep-rooted from seed, long-lived, and uneven in shoot length and flush timing in a way that makes a fine plucking standard expensive. Much of it is old.

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. Rotorvane maceration — Macerates withered leaf continuously by forcing it forward past fixed vanes under back pressure, rupturing cells thoroughly and generating heat in the process.
4. 4. CTC (crush, tear, curl) — Comprehensively ruptures and cuts the leaf into uniform granules, maximising surface area and speeding both oxidation and later extraction.
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.

• 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
• Rotorvane maceration
  • raises Tea cream
• CTC (crush, tear, curl)
  • raises Tea cream
  • raises Theaflavins
• 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

• Mug infuser brewing

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

  Needs: Mug infuser basket

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 96–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Assuming African tea is rain-fed because most of it is. This origin is the exception and it explains the shape of the whole industry here.

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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