Chinese Tea Annals

The image usually associated with tea plants is that of neatly trimmed bushes in well kept tea gardens. But camellia sinensis, which is the scientific name for the species with those magic leaves, has of course been growing long before men started to cultivate it. Wild tea plants can get very old as well as quite big and they look nothing like the tea bushes on a tea farm. If the climatic conditions are right, they develop into real trees, sometimes as high as twenty meters.

Every type and variety of Chinese teas are made with the leaves of camellia sinensis. However, tea plants can be classified into three categories depending on their size: trees (乔木型茶树), half trees (半乔木形茶树) and bushes (灌木型茶树).

Tea trees typically are more than ten metres high. They have all the characteristics of other trees and their leaves are relatively big. This is the kind of plants that were originally used as a medicine and later as a beverage by the the first humans to make use of tea. It is how tea plants eventually look like when they are completely left to themselves.

Half trees have a real trunk like trees; but they are not that high and their branches are much closer to the ground. Like the trees, they have big leaves, which are used for the production of some Pu’er (普洱) teas.

Tea bushes are the most common size of tea plants. They are relatively small and it is hard to distinguish the trunk from the branches. Their leaves are small compared to those of wild plants. It is this kind of cultivated and cared after tea plants that are used in the production of most tea varieties.

The hills of Sichuan (四川) and Yunnan (云南) provinces are one of tea’s first habitat. Unsurprisingly this is also where the oldest and tallest tea trees can be found. The very oldest tea tree known is estimated to be around 2700 years old. This makes it a contemporary of the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋时代), which saw the emergence of some of the most important Chinese Schools of Thoughts. It also makes it older than the tea trade itself.

In the mountainous regions around Pu’er City (普洱市), the oldest wild tea trees are protected and it is not allowed to pick their leaves. This blogger has some great pictures from a wild tea tree spotting trip in the region.

More Tea Facts

Chinese sources: 茶树的分类及其生长习性; 镇沅千家寨2700年古茶树