Tea as a Beverage

Consumption of tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage in China, in the eighth century (Grigg, 2003). Tea is an evergreen bush of the genus Camellia, from south-eastern Asia, whose leaves were subject to adequate preparation with only the most aromatic, young, top two leaves and the unopened leaf bud. Up to 80,000 hand-plucked shoots were needed to produce one pound of top-grade tea. The production of tea has high labour-intensive steps while processes undergo, which determine the resulting tea’s characteristic colouring, taste and composition where every step has to be monitored to achieve superior quality (http://www.irvingtea.com, 2010). Tea is grown not only in Asia but also in many other tropical countries, but the main exporters are China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Vietnam.