White tea is commonly lauded for its minimal processing, which is said to leave more of the naturally healthful compounds intact in the finished tea. While the health claims are difficult to prove, it’s true that white tea processing only really takes one step, called fading.

Matcha, or powdered green tea, has become Japan’s most famous type of tea. Originally adapted from powdered teas popular in China during the Tang Dynasty, Japanese matcha has since evolved into an utterly unique type of tea, central to the precise and complex Japanese Tea Ceremony. Today, it is popular worldwide, and used in many non-traditional ways, like matcha lattes or baked goods.

White and green teas are both commonly touted for their minimal processing and beneficial antioxidants. Many sources cite differences in processing, caffeine, or antioxidant levels as defining features between the two types. But among dubious health claims and heavy marketing, it can be hard to tell what, exactly, makes these two types of tea so different. Most teas categories, including green teas, are defined by the steps used in processing, but the definition of white tea is a little more specific. In this post, we’ll break down the differences between the two styles based on the four components of any tea’s identity: variety, provenance, harvest date, and craftsmanship.

The advantages of drinking green tea are nothing to scoff at, but brewing the leaves in water only extracts a portion of the available nutrients and antioxidants. To get the most out of your green tea leaves, you can also eat them!

For the best flavor and maximum nutritional value, it’s best to seek out green teas made of the young buds of the tea plant that are picked in the springtime. These baby leaves are naturally sweet and tender, much like baby spinach or arugula. In Hangzhou, where high quality green teas are an integral part of local culture, some tea drinkers are even known to eat the leaves straight from their cup after brewing.

Jasmine tea has been a luxurious treat for the Chinese aristocracy since the Ming Dynasty, when fresh, loose, leaves started to gain popularity. But to many tea purists, it can seem like a cop out - a fragrance added to mask the flaws of sub-par tea leaves. The truth is that jasmine teas, like all other tea types, are made in a wide range of quality levels, including both opulent delicacies and inferior imitations.

If you’ve ever sipped an English black tea, the chances are good that it was made with Assam leaves. As the base for most English Breakfast blends, Assam is one of the best known types of tea in the western world. As with most teas, the name “Assam” carries connotations about where the tea is grown, what variety of the plant is used to make it, and even how it is crafted. But given the proliferation of blends and flavored teas that use these leaves as a base, the definition can get muddled. So, what exactly is Assam tea?

The crafting of tea is an exacting process, developed over hundreds of years through trial and error. Today, scientific research has helped us define the chemical processes that occur during the various steps of crafting, but the long history and guarded crafting traditions have led to some common misconceptions and confusing terminology. In particular, “fermentation” is often used to describe the darkening of tea leaves during the crafting process, though very few teas undergo microbial activity during processing. Instead, most teas undergo what is more accurately called “oxidation”.

The confluence of these two words is compounded by confusing translations of the names of tea categories. For instance, the Chinese word hēichá translates directly to “black tea”, but this category is commonly translated to “dark tea” in order to avoid confusion with the black teas known in the west. Rather, an English black tea would be called hóngchá, or literally, “red tea”, in Chinese.

To clarify, understanding the distinction between oxidation and fermentation is essential. So what is the difference between the two, and how can we define them in the context of tea processing?

For many regular tea drinkers, oolong tea is an exotic category, or even entirely unheard of. Black teas and green teas are now crafted around the world, and have transformed to suit the varied tastes of global populations. But oolong tea production is still centered in China and Taiwan, in four main regions.

Yet oolong teas are far from a homogenous group. In fact, since the oolong category includes any tea that is partially oxidized, the range of flavors in this general group is more varied and dramatic than any other. With such scope, generalizing all oolongs into one lot can be confusing, if not misleading.

Oolong teas vary in style based on the terroir and tradition of the region they come from, just like black or green teas. It may seem as though the relatively small area they come from would reduce diversity of styles, but the mountainous terrain of southeastern China provides natural barriers between each region. Since travel through the mountains has always been difficult, local tea varieties and crafting techniques developed independently, with little overlap. The four most famous oolong growing areas give us four distinct divisions of oolong tea.