juliantai > writes:

> [...]
>
> <I'm not so sure about this argument. It's hardly unusual for
> <black/red tea to be made from young shoots. And the main reason
> <oolong is made from mature leaves, I think, is that they hold up
> <better under the kneading and rolling during manufacture.
>
> Generally speaking, high grade green tea is made from a single bud up
> to two adjacent leaves.

Yes, *high grade* green tea. I think high grade red tea tends to be
plucked similarly.

> Whereas oolong tea or red tea is made from the 2 to 4 leaves. There
> are exceptions, like the famous green tea Liu an Gua Pian.
>
> Processing is important. But the chemical difference between the two
> is important too.

Of course chemical differences are important. My point was that they
aren't the whole explanation for which stages of the tea plant's
growth are used in various types of made tea (green, oolong, red,
etc.) Think of it another way. These practices go back centuries to
a great extent. Were the Fujianese farmers who developed oolong
technology in the Ming dynasty thinking about catechins?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html