STiR coffee and tea magazine

38 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 5, 2020 (October / November) M By Peter Keen ore and more premium teas contain other agricultural ingredients that are essential to their differentiation: flower buds and petals, spices, herbs, fruit leaves and peel, scents, extracts, and oil essences. Many of these are a com- modity grown worldwide; valerian, for instance, is cultivated in Belgium, France, Rus- sia, China, Eastern Europe, and North America. It's a generic mass-farmed commodity. That's not so for the botanicals that are either native to a country or region — rooibos, from a tiny area of South Africa, for example — or that have wide variations between the best and the average: Vietnam lotus leaf versus generic Chinese, Bangladesh or Korean, for instance. A few botanicals are tightly integrated into the very identity of a tea in terms of quality and processing. Earl Grey, for instance, at its very best is distinguished by its being flavored by bergamot, a citrus fruit grown only in Calabria, Italy, expensive and excellent. It takes 200 kilograms of fruit to make just one kilo of the real and rare bergamot essence. The average products use derivatives or substitute a wide range of bergamot natural and artificial flavorings, citrus extracts, and herbal blendings. Ali- baba.com lists over 1,200 under "bergamot flavorings," including fingered citron. The lowest-quality create the flavor from food-grade propylene glycol and ethyl alcohol "bergamot flavoring concentrate." They are all labeled as "Earl Grey." Informed tea lovers understand, to varying degrees, the differences between, say, CTC and whole leaf, Kenyan and Assam blacks, ceremonial and culinary matcha, greens and whites, or first- and second-flush Darjeelings. But they are far less likely to be aware of similar differences among ingredients in scented, herbal, or infused teas. These are pervasive but easy to overlook. For instance, one of the most popular herbal teas is chamomile, noted as a sleeping aid. Most packages list just "chamomile." If you are looking for Egyptian chamomile or prefer Roman over German, you won't find any help here, even if you know that these varieties exist. Are there real differences among them? Oh, yes, as much as there are among, say, Assam, Nilgiri, and Darjeeling teas. These are "Indian" but contrast strongly in their flavor and appeal. The same distinctions apply to "chamomile" teas. Roman chamo- mile has an apple-like fragrance, and its teas are noted for their anti-inflammatory and gastrointestinal properties. Teas made from the German variety (a genus rather than geographic source) are sweeter than other varieties, and more subtle. Botanicals As Differentiators in Tea: Botanicals As Differentiators in Tea: Information and Education Lag Behind Innovation

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