About tea

You can find background information on individual tea-related topics under News & Teegeschichten (in German only). We present new teas, fresh harvests, new tea ware with many pictures of the cultivation and processing of teas and the production of tea ceramics.

The tea plant can be processed as white, yellow, green, oolong, black or post-fermented tea. The infinite variety of teas on offer is the result of the variety of the tea plant, geographical and climatic differences, and the guiding influence of the human hand, the artistic signature of the tea master who directs the processing - we can describe this with the term “terroir”.

The tea plant Camellia sinensis is an ancient cultivated plant that has been used for thousands of years in its area of origin. Tea bushes grow tall and can become trees several metres high. For tea cultivation, however, the plant is normally pruned to the size of a bush about one metre high. Roughly speaking, there are two biological varieties called Camellia sinensis var. sinensis and Camellia sinensis var. assamica - as with other cultivated plants, there are countless varieties, crosses and cultivars, which we summarise under the term tea plant varieties.

Tea is a raw product and must be prepared. This is why there are culturally specific preparation methods. Tea is still the most widely drunk beverage in the world and in many countries around the world, people drink many cups of hot tea every day, but from a wide variety of containers and in a wide variety of preparations. In particular, we refer to the tea preparations Gongfucha and Senchado from the countries of origin China and Japan.

We often talk about classic teas and traditional processing. However, the teas we drink today are more recent, having been known for a few centuries at most; this also applies to the big names of famous teas. However, production changes over time - the vast majority of today's teas are processed according to standards from the second half of the 20th century.