Tea Myths, Examined

What the tea trade calls fermentation is driven above all by the leaf's own oxidising enzymes changing its compounds. It works nothing like the microbial fermentation behind yoghurt or miso.

The word survives because it was the term in use when tea manufacture was codified. As a name it is well established, so it is less a mistake than a historical quirk — but explaining it in terms of microbes is simply wrong.

Some teas, such as pu-erh, really do involve microbial action. Those are classed separately, as post-fermented teas.

Black tea, green tea and oolong all come from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. Cultivars and origins differ, but the plant is the same.

Heat the leaf straight after plucking and oxidation stops, giving green tea. Halt it part-way and you get oolong; take it far and you get black tea. Withering, rolling and drying are handled differently too, so oxidation is not the only variable — but it is the biggest one.

The large-leaved assamica tends to be used for full-bodied black tea and the small-leaved sinensis for more delicate teas, green ones included. But both are varieties of the same plant, and black tea is routinely made from sinensis.

Chamomile, rooibos and hibiscus contain no leaf from the tea plant. They are infusions of flowers, leaves or roots — a different thing from tea.

In everyday use 'herbal tea' is a perfectly normal name for them. Where the distinction matters, 'herbal infusion' or 'tisane' is used instead.

It matters for caffeine too. Most herbal infusions never contained any — though some, such as maté, do. Decaffeinated black tea, by contrast, has had it removed and still retains a trace.

Orange Pekoe (OP) is a grade for long, twisted, larger leaf. It is neither a brand nor a flavour, and a tin marked OP will not smell of orange. What counts as OP varies by region and by maker.

Where the 'orange' came from is genuinely unsettled. It gets linked to the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau, or to the colour of dried bud, but neither is an established explanation. All that can honestly be said is that such stories circulate.

It is true that longer codes usually mean more bud and more careful work. But that describes how the tea was made; it is not a score for how good it tastes.

There is no international standard for these codes in the first place — they follow local convention. You cannot rank teas across regions by the letters alone.

In practice it is more useful to read a grade as brewing behaviour: large leaf gives up its aroma slowly, fine leaf brews strong quickly.

Calling Darjeeling, Uva and Keemun 'the world's three great teas' is a framing that is popular in Japan. No international body has defined any such ranking.

All three are genuinely renowned for their distinctive aromas. It is the 'top three' framing itself that has no authority behind it.

TWG Tea is a Singaporean luxury tea brand founded in 2008. The 1837 displayed prominently in its logo is not a founding date.

The number refers to the year the company marks as the beginning of the tea trade in Singapore. The styling invites people to read it as a heritage date, and many do.

Twinings on the Strand in London dates to 1706 and has traded on the same site for over three hundred years. What was acquired in 1706 was a coffee house, though; by the company's own account the dedicated tea shop came in 1717.

The claim that it is the oldest tea shop in the world still trading is another matter: we could not verify it independently, and the answer depends on what counts as a tea shop. We avoid asserting it.

The founding is often told as Thomas Twining opening a coffee house. The company's own account is that he bought an existing one.

Mariage Frères was founded in 1854 by the Mariage brothers on Rue Bourg-Tibourg in the Marais quarter of Paris. The Marais is the founding address, not a later expansion.

What happened in the 1980s was that a house long focused on wholesale began retailing to the public and opened a tea salon. A shop did open, then — but as a change of business at the founding address, not an arrival somewhere new. Told as 'the shop it opened in the Marais in 1985', the founding drops out of the story.

Teavana completed the closure of its retail stores during fiscal 2018. The East India Company in London entered creditors voluntary liquidation on 23 September 2025.

Stale entries nevertheless persist in map services and shop round-ups. We removed both from the data behind our World Tea Map, as shops we could not confirm to be trading.

Closed-shop listings survive for a remarkably long time, in tea as elsewhere. Check the shop's own site or social media before you set out.

Decaffeinated tea has had its caffeine taken out. It is tea that was processed, not a drink that never had any.

Drinks that never contained any are labelled caffeine-free — rooibos, for instance, which uses no tea leaf. Not every herbal infusion qualifies, though: maté contains caffeine.

If you need to limit caffeine, read the two labels as the different things they are. How much is appropriate depends on the person and the situation — ask a medical professional if it matters to you.

Black tea often turns cloudy as it cools. Usually this is cream down: polyphenols such as theaflavins and thearubigins bind with caffeine into fine particles.

If anything it happens more readily with a well-extracted tea, and it is not a sign of poor quality. The film that forms on the surface in hard water is a different thing, caused by the minerals in the water.

If you want a clear glass, brew strong and chill it fast over plenty of ice. The slower it cools, the cloudier it gets.

Benifuki is a Japanese cultivar known for its high methylated catechin content when it is made as green tea.

That compound does not survive oxidation, however, and black tea manufacture removes nearly all of it. The same cultivar yields something quite different depending on how it is processed.

Enjoy Benifuki wakoucha for the character the cultivar brings to the cup, rather than for that compound.

Taiwan's honey black tea and Oriental Beauty get their honeyed aroma from leaves fed on by a small insect, which tea people conventionally call unka.

Taxonomically it is not a planthopper but a leafhopper — the tea green leafhopper. The nickname is well established and we use it too, but it helps to know it names a different insect.

Either way the point stands: the aroma comes from leaves that have been fed on. Because the insects have to reach the leaf for it to appear, growers hold back on spraying to get it.

The word chai brings Indian masala chai to mind — simmered with spices and milk — but Turkish çay simply means tea.

In Turkey a strong brew is made in the upper pot of a two-tier çaydanlık, diluted to taste with water from the lower pot, and drunk from small tulip-shaped glasses. No milk; sugar is usual.

What 'chai' refers to depends entirely on where you are. We made this mistake ourselves, once classifying Turkey's Rize as a milk tea. It has since been corrected.

Britain has argued about milk-in-first versus milk-in-last for a very long time. Adding milk first lets the hot tea meet it gradually, so the proteins are not hit with sudden heat.

Adding it afterwards has the practical advantage of letting you judge the strength as you pour. The order does change how the milk is heated, and some people can taste the difference. Both sides have a case; neither is wrong.

The argument itself is part of tea culture. Try both and keep the one you prefer.