ACQUIZHEN

Tea – Camellia sinensis

The plant which provides black tea, green tea and white tea is a less flamboyant relation of the colourful camellias found in gardens throughout the world. As indicated by the use of ‘sinensis’ in its name of Camellia sinensis the plant was originally recorded growing in the wild in China. Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world after water. It used to be much rarer to the extent that the mistress of the house held the key to the tea caddy so that none of the precious leaves could go amiss. Since its discovery tea has exerted a powerful influence on human behaviour and has also held important symbolic value. The Japanese tea ceremony is about making tea with the right spirit and in doing so demonstrating sublime hospitality. Once great Tea Clippers specially designed to carry their light cargo speedily raced across the oceans to bring their cargo from the Far East to Europe. Casting Tea Chests into the sea marked the beginning of American Independence.

Tea has been found growing in the wild in China and India. It continues to be cultivated in these countries and has also been introduced as an agricultural crop in other Asian countries, Australia and now in Cornwall in England. When the British occupied India the wives of forces would go up to the Tea plantations for the summer to escape the heat of the plains. To this day as you travel up to the Tea plantations the air becomes cooler and the surroundings lusher in the mild damp habitat that tea favours. 

The tea plant is usually grown as a shrub. It has dark glossy leaves and white-petalled yellow-centred flowers. The buds of the plant are covered in silky hairs which drop off as the leaf matures. It is these buds and immature leaves which are made into white tea. The downy covering of hairs makes the buds and leaves appear white and tea brewed from them is much paler than green or black tea which is why this type of tea is called white tea.
The buds of the tea plant are its growing tips and this is where the most important growth processes take place. It is in the bud that stems are made to grow long and tall by cell division and elongation. The bud also starts the arrangement of leaves on a stem to maximise each leaf’s exposure to sunlight. Because of the special processes taking place in the bud it has different properties than mature leaves.

ACQUIZHEN´s White Tea is grown in the high mountains of South China in Fujian and contains more polyphenols - anti-oxidants – than green or black tea. This is partly because of the special physiology of the buds and also because white tea undergoes less processing than green or black tea. White tea is simply dried and not steamed or fermented. The anti-oxidant, moisturising and protective properties of white tea are harnessed in the extract incorporated in ACQUIZHEN’s Replenishing Day Cream, Gentle Exfoliating Mask, Eye & Delicate Skin Serum, Nurturing Night Cream and Freshening Cleanser