Fascinating! ..(if you're a tea addict)

On cleaning out the used tea leaves from yesterday's Jasmine Butterfly in Love tea, I was totally intrigued to see how the little 'butterflies' of dried tea had, in the water, opened out into complete tips of tea! It's the first time I've ever seen tea leaves in the form that they would grow on the plant! It just had to be the subject of today's blip!

So, I have been doing a bit of research and here is today's interesting tea fact (apologies to anyone who may actually be a real tea expert, if I have any of this wrong.. please do correct me!)

Green tea, black tea and white tea all come from the tea bush - Camellia Sinensis, which is a relative of the camellia bushes that we have in gardens here at home. The tips of the branches (the 'pluck') are used to make tea as it is the bud and leaves at the very end of the branch that have the best flavour.

The 'pluck' consists of the bud at the very end of the branch, which you can see in the centre of my specimen. The next leaf down which is still curled in on itself is called the 'Pekoe'.

The number of additional leaves that are plucked together with the pekoe determines the category of the pluck.

I believe that what we are seeing here is an 'Imperial Pluck' as only one leaf adjacent to the pekoe is taken. This is a very high quality pluck and the name derives from the fact that, in the past, this pluck was reserved for important dignitaries!

Fascinating!