As an enthusiastic tea fan I sometimes feel the need to spread tea culture into the world, and this is a nice place to do that . So, if you are new to tea world, join me on this little guide to tea varieties.

Actually, I still call myself a beginner, despite having drank hectolitres of tea so far Why that, you may ask. Maybe because with every new tea type I purchase, I discover a new world which makes me reconsider whether I know much about tea or not.

But first of all, I would like to issue a warning about incorrect terms we use for all those hot-water-prepared beverages that don’t have any connections with tea bush by the name of Camelia sinensis. The boiled water we pour over herbs or fruits, makes a herbal infusion. There’s another, quite infrequent term for infusion from other than leaves of tea bush -  tisane or ptisan.

So, now we can start

As as child, I drank tea herbal infusions only in winter and when ill. Usually, it was chamomile, hibiscus or karkade, rosa canina or lime or lindenflower infusion, flavoured with lemon juice and honey. I still see too many people associate tea with cold and illness and that’s such a pity. I always liked herbs, even those most bitter tasting, and as I’ve grown older, my interest for them did nothing but to increase.

And my first contact with real tea was as a teenager, when someone brought me as a present an air-tight container of Ceylon black tea. No one in the family wanted to try it, I guess it reminded them too much of the one we used to call ruski čaj /Russion tea that people bought in farmacy everytime they had some health issues going on. Although that tea, obviously imported from Russia, wasn’t of Russian origins but rather of the Chinese, the term “Russian” has been spread all over the country with slightly negative sense ever since.
And so they gave it to me and I wasn’t happy with the taste either. I tried adding milk, sugar… but soon realized that it just wasn’t my thing. It also made my stomach upset a bit, since I wasn’t much of a caffeine-supporting type of person.
After some time, I was introduced to green tea, that is, to the green tea from tea bags. The one that impressed me the most was from Lipton. It was quite a discovery, especially the one with mint, the flavour I adore. I drunk it without sugar, plain, exactly the way it has to be.

You might have heard of numerous health benefits that green tea is supposed to provide. I personally believe, it is all true. I notice not only a general improvement of my immunic system, taste and smell, but also changes in the ability of comprehending things. It broadens the mind, we could say.

However, I could hardly call those tiny particles inside tea bags real “green tea”. Namely, what they stuff inside those bags, is merely dust, originating from what once used to be green tea leaves which got broken or crushed during the processing. Actually, if you are buying tea from tea bags, you are paying a pretty high amount of money for something, rather called remainings of tea (excluding Lipton and a couple of others, whose tea is of adequate quality).

So, for someone with high interest in real tea, the next logic step from tea bags is buying loose tea. Slovene tea lovers can decide between selection of classic green, black, red tea and herbal varieties in CHA, where I stop by occasionaly to purchase a stock of theanine as well. Except few other places like some supermarkets, there’s not much more places to go for tea.
Another option, of course, is to order tea online, but regarding our previous experiences with mail here, I definitely don’t dare to think of it.

The 1st tea I’d like to introduce to you today, is Japanese cherry scented sencha. This was the first loose green tea variety I ever bought. The smell of the cherry essential oil is so gorgeous that I can’t resist buying it from time to time.

Note: All Japanese green teas come from the same tea – the differences are a matter of the grade of leaf they used. Sencha is crafted from smaller leaves which have a more refined taste. The higher the price, the better the quality of sencha. Well, inflacija appart.