On 31 Oct 2003, AK posted the following to rec.food.drink.tea:

> I went to brooklyn Ten Ren yesterday and bought some white tea
> and an oolong (that tastes more like gunpowder green). The nice
> lady gave me a scan of a ny times story about tea. It said there
> are 3000 types of tea. Is that true? Are most of them
> perceptibly different? (more so than different harvest of the
> same type)?

I think the numbers get artificially inflated. There is a lot of
variety, but it's easy to inflate the number of variations when you
mix and match:

* Country of origin
* Region of origin
* geography of estate
* Type of tea
* grade of leaf
* season of harvest
* method of harvest
* blending and additives.

Plus any variety of teas flavored with orange, plum, black
currants, or mangos.

Several references I've seen argue that there are 3 basic types of
tea (black, green and oolong), and claim that the "over 3000
types" of tea come from variations of those three.

I guess "white" is considered "light green."

Derek

--

Count Dracula was a phoebophobe.