Black Tea

When people talk generally of tea in Western culture, they’re often referring to black tea.

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What is Black Tea?

When people talk generally of tea in Western culture, they’re often referring to black tea. Sun tea, sweet tea, iced tea, afternoon tea…these well-known categories of tea are typically made using black tea. Even the popular English Breakfast and Earl Grey blends are made from black tea leaves.

This is in contrast to Eastern culture—in countries like China and Japan—where tea typically refers to green tea. So what’s the difference between black and green tea? And how did black tea become so popular in the West?

Black tea origins

Tea is considered to have originated in China. But it’s the delicate, fresh-tasting green tea that became popular in Eastern society and is still the base of tea culture there today. As tea culture spread and tea was processed for export to trade beyond regions, neighboring countries and eventually across oceans, it was discovered that the more oxidized black tea would retain its freshness and flavor better over long journeys than its minimally oxidized green tea cousin. In the earliest days of border trade between China, Tibet and other neighboring countries, tea was fermented, dried and pressed into bricks to be used as currency. To this day, most of the black tea produced in China is exported out of the country.

The Dutch first brought tea to Europe in 1610, it arrived in England in 1658, and then it rose in popularity in England’s American colonies throughout the 1700s. Demand for tea experienced huge leaps in the 1700s as England expanded sugar imports from its Caribbean colonies. By 1800, the English were annually consuming 2½ pounds of tea and 17 pounds of sugar per capita. Some claim it was the increasing trend of adding sugar to tea that spiked the demand for strong black tea over the more delicate green tea imports.

The next leap in black tea production came in the 1800s when the Camellia sinensis assamica tea plant variety was discovered in 1823 in the Assam region of India. This native variety was much better suited to the production of the hearty, bold black teas that were in high demand. Not long after, in 1835, the English started planting tea gardens in India’s Darjeeling region, near Nepal. Since India was a British colony, these different varieties of black teas quickly became popular exports to England.

Black tea processing

To understand what makes black tea black and green tea green, it’s important to know that all tea originates from the same exact plant—Camellia sinensis. It’s the variety of tea plant and how the plant’s leaves are processed that define if a tea becomes black or green.

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