Traceable sources
Key claims cite peer-reviewed work, standards or authoritative references; the bibliography and glossary are public.
BY 茶食新知 · BILINGUAL · CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED
Tea processing, tasting
and flavour — made clear
From fresh leaf to finished cup, explore verifiable sources, clear process pathways and interactive visuals that connect production, sensory evaluation and everyday brewing.
Follow the journey of a leaf firstInteractive starting point
The six tea categories begin with one question: what happens to oxidation?
Select a tea on the spectrum to open the science behind its process. This is not decoration; it is the first map of the knowledge base.
Click a tea to read the science behind it
Two "atypical-oxidation" paths
Positions show typical processing tendencies only: they are not measured “oxidation percentages” or category/grade thresholds. Actual extent varies with cultivar, leaf material, season and craft. Moist-heat yellowing and microbial post-fermentation are shown separately.
Continuously updated
Latest updates
Selected automatically by each article’s last-updated date.
The Origin & Global Spread of Tea
Tea began in China — first as a medicine. Separating legend from history reveals how, over nearly two thousand years, one leaf went from remedy to drink, from boiled to steeped, and then reshaped the whole world by land and sea.
Read →China's Six Tea Categories — An Overview
Green, white, yellow, oolong, black, dark — Chinese tea is classified not by colour or region but by craft, and at its heart lies the degree and manner of oxidation. One oxidation spectrum makes sense of all six.
Read →The Science of Black-Tea "Fermentation"
Black tea's "fermentation" isn't fermentation at all — it's an enzyme-driven oxidation that turns colourless catechins into golden theaflavins and red-brown thearubigins.
Read →The Science of Dark-Tea Pile-Fermentation (Wodui)
The first three crafts rely on the leaf's own enzymes; dark-tea wodui hands the lead role to microbes — a true "post-fermentation" that turns polyphenols into theabrownins and makes ripe pu-erh deep, red and mellow.
Read →Editor’s picks
New here? Start with these
A data-based popular list will appear only after the first 28-day baseline. Until then, these are clearly labelled editorial choices.
01 Orientation
The journey of a leaf
Why can the same leaf become six different teas? Begin with the whole picture.
Enter → 02 ProcessingThe six tea categories
Use process chains and the oxidation spectrum instead of memorising names.
Enter → 03 TastingThe tea flavour wheel
Turn aroma, sweetness, astringency and body into a shared vocabulary.
Enter →Complete knowledge map
A nine-chapter atlas of tea
The nine chapters are not parallel silos, but five reading domains: Know Tea (01–03), Tea Science (04–05), Flavor & Brewing (06–07), Tea Culture (08), and Contemporary Issues (09).
Why trust this work
Knowledge should be traceable, revisable and open to correction
Layered reading
L1 establishes the idea; L2 opens the process parameters, biochemical mechanisms and limits of the evidence.
Continuously revised
Articles carry publication and update dates; authorship, editorial policy and a public corrections process are all available and updated with material revisions.