Flavor of tea is often affected by what kind of environment the tea is grown, how farmers care for the tea, and the type of processing to make the tea, but the origin of plants themselves are also considered to be an important factor.

Tea variety and origin

Tea originated in the mountains of Yunnan province, China. There are many old tea plants that are actually large trees. Tea plants traveled to various parts of the world and penetrated into local culture. This also created preferred flavor, processing techniques to achieve that flavor and unique varieties or traits of tea plants.

Commonly known differences are Assam varieties are known for fruity and floral aroma, thus makes good black tea, darjeeling is known for its elegant aroma which can be easily distinguishable from Assam and other black tea producing regions. Tiekuanyin and taiwan oolong express long-lasting floral aroma, while sencha emphasizes fresh and vegetal quality.

It becomes quite obvious when you do tea processing. Black and oolong tea varieties can be processed into green tea and makes good looking green tea, but when you finally taste it, often it is disappointing. Since high level of polyphenol in black tea varieties tend to create the strong residual impact in black tea, but when you try to make green tea, it becomes too much. Although there are few cases where this combination actually create great unexpected result, but I have also witnessed lack of aroma from oolong tea and black tea created from green tea varieties as well.