Camellia sinensis
Camellia sinensis is the plant species whose leaves and leaf buds are used to produce tea.
Camellia sinensis is native to Southeast Asia, but is today
cultivated across the world, in tropical and subtropical regions. It
is an evergreen shrub or small tree that is usually trimmed to below two meters (six
feet) when cultivated for its leaves. It has a strong taproot. The flowers are yellow-white, 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter, with 7 to 8 petals. The seeds can be pressed to yield an oil.
Green, oolong and black tea are all harvested from this species, but are processed to attain different levels of oxidation.
The leaves are about 4-15 cm long and 2-5 cm broad.
Fresh leaves contain some 4% caffeine.
The young, light green leaves are preferably harvested for tea production; they have short white hairs on the underside. Older leaves are darker green. Different leaf age produce differing tea qualities, since their chemical compositions are different. Usually, the tip (bud) and the first two to three leaves are harvested for processing. This hand picking is repeated every one to two weeks.
Several varieties of C. sinensis are used for tea production; most prominent are the variety of Assam (sometimes called C. sinensis assamica or C. assamica) and the plant of China (sometimes called C. sinensis sinensis), as well as various cross-breads of the two.
The Chinese variety is a small-leaved bush with multiple stems that reaches a height of some 3 meters. Assamica has a single stem and larger leaves; it is usually 6 to 20 meters (20-65 feet) tall if not trimmed. Assamica is a lowland variety of the plant and does not tolerate cold winters, unlike sinensis. It has a higher yield than sinensis.
The tea from Assam is exclusively the assamica variety. Most of Ceylon tea too is produced from this variety.
Assamica produces a malty, earthy drink, unlike the flowery sinensis.
There is also a Cambodian variety of the plant, C. sinensis parvifolia, with leaves in size between the Assam and Chinese varieties; it is a small tree with several stems.
