Tea (Camellia sinensis)

by Jiling Lin

Botanical Name: Camellia sinensis

Family: Theaceae

Parts Used: leaves

Energetics: cold, drying, stimulant

Taste: bitter, sweet

Properties: astringent, digestive, antioxidant, anti- inflammatory

Preparations: tea, powder, oil infusion, extract

Camellia sinensis Introduction

Growing up, drinking tea was an integral part of everyday life. We drank tea after most meals and grew ornamental Camellia bushes in front of the house. While sipping diverse fragrant teas in elegant blue porcelain cups, we passed tea and conversation around and around our small kitchen table, while large pink celebratory Camellia blossoms waved from through our window, perfuming our lives with their delicate scent.

Years later, guiding students through China, we stayed in a traditional old tea village in China’s Yunnan province, home of some of the wildest and oldest tea plants in the world. Tea is life, here. There’s no fanciness or fanfare. Babies drink tea with their milk. The whole village drinks tea from sunrise to sunset and tends to tea plants all day. Life revolves around this plant.

Botany

Tea (Camellia sinensis), or Cha 茶 in Chinese, is a notable member of the Theaceae family. Theaceae family plants are shrubs or trees, usually evergreen, bearing simple alternating leaves with toothed margins, often gland- tipped and glossy. Theaceae flowers are bisexual, often showy and fragrant, and usually pink or white. They typically have five or more sepals and petals, with 20- 100 stamen bearing psuedopollen, and a hairy ovary that narrows into a branched or cleft style. The family name root, “Thea-” means “God.”

Camellia sinensis is an evergreen shrub or small tree, usually trimmed to below 2 meters when cultivated for its leaves. They have yellow- white flowers, with 7- 8 petals.  The leaves and buds are processed into different teas, usually containing about 4% caffeine in dry weight, with antioxidants like catechins, and alkaloids like theobromine. Every 1-2 weeks during the harvest season, farmers carefully hand-pick the soft, bright green leaf bud and first three leaves off each plant.

Camellia sinensis is native to east Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and southeast Asia. Humans have cultivated Camellia spp. tea bushes for thousands of years, hybridizing wild and cultivated varieties, and selectively breeding for flavor and caffeine content. Diverse varieties of cultivated Camellia sinensis abound. Today, farmers cultivate tea worldwide in tropical and subtropical areas. Two major varieties grown today are Camellia sinensis var. sinensis and C. sinensis var. assamica.

Cultivation

Theaceae family plants love warm- temperate, subtropical, and tropical forests. Camellia sinensis is easy to grow, since it thrives in various climates. It takes around three years for it to mature enough to harvest, usually once it becomes 1 meter tall. But until then, enjoy the plant. Plant the seed or seedling in acidic soil. Keep it in a warm place, and, depending on your climate, water daily.

Processing

Different preparations create different types of tea. This includes, in order of level of oxidation: white, green, yellow, Oolong, black, and fermented/ dark/ Pu’er teas. Depending on the type of tea, after picking the leaves, the work-intensive processing ritual may involve wilting, bruising, oxidation, fixation, yellowing, shaping, drying, then curing the leaves. Typically, the more oxidized the tea, the higher the caffeine content.

Medicinal Preparations + Uses

Tea convivially weaves community by stimulating conversation and creating relaxed and engaged connection. Tea also has personal, ritualistic, and medicinal benefits.

I drink green, white, or black tea most mornings. My favorites include Pu’er (fermented black tea), Tie Guan Yin (a type of Oolong tea), and a simple green tea that we picked from the little tea village in Yunnan province. My morning routine is simple: cleanse, boil water, drink tea, write, exercise, eat, then continue my day. Tea gently wakes my mind, lightly stimulates peristalsis, and anchors a nourishing support for the rest of my day.

I often have my acupuncture patients commit to one lifestyle change each month. These simple habitual changes compound, incrementally creating a life of health and ease. I especially love implementing morning rituals, such as drinking tea.

In Chinese medicine, dampness congeals into heavy, sluggish, or slow digestion, mindset, emotions, or other physical functions. Tea dispels accumulated dampness and invigorates liveliness. Drinking morning tea can stimulate peristalsis and wakefulness, jump starting smooth digestion and mindset for the rest of the day. Drinking tea during work or study can promote mental acuity and creativity.

Cautions

Tea may be over- stimulating when taken in excess, or for those who are already easily excitable or anxious. Tea may be depleting for those with a sensitive digestive system. Do not use with other stimulants, as it can lead to agitation, tremors, or insomnia. For those sensitive to caffeine, drink tea in the morning or early afternoon, not in the evening.

Topical/ Other Uses

Besides its rich cultural history of community building, ritual, and commerce, tea is also useful topically as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and astringent. Its cooling, drying, and stimulating properties lend easily to a diversity of preparations and uses, including compresses, oil infusions, powders, steams, water infusions, honey infusions, witch hazel infusions, extracts, and more.

Compress: Cheap pre-packaged tea is available in most grocery stores across the USA. It’s an accessible and useful first aid astringent. Use as a drawing agent to tighten swollen tissues and reduce inflammation. Apply 1-3 warm tea bags directly to the affected area to soothe bug bites, express an underground pimple or sore, or even reduce discomfort from conjunctivitis.

Oil Infusion: Infuse dried tea leaves into your favorite carrier oil to create a lightly scented antioxidant Camellia sinensis oil infusion. This oil infusion can then be used in all the diverse ways of your basic oil infusion: use directly as a massage oil, combine with other oils or scents to form a serum, or integrate with beeswax and other constituents to create a salve or cream.

Powder: Grind dried green tea leaves into a powder for a variety of uses. Mix with oatmeal and other herbal powders like mint for an invigorating cleansing scrub. Rub into honey for an exfoliating honey mask.

Other: Tighten pores with a green tea infusion mist and tea-infused witch hazel toner. Use in a steam with aromatic mints to open pores and clear sinuses and senses, with a pore tightening aftereffect. Infuse in water, then use as a spray for after- sun skin care, or after other cleansing routines.

Combinations

Tea is featured in a Traditional Chinese Medicine formula, Chuang Xiong Cha Tiao San, which dispels external Wind and alleviates pain, with symptoms such as common cold with headache, congestion, and/ or body aches. In this formula, tea descends the rebellious qi and clear phlegm. In order words, it clears out excess mucus by synergizing with other herbs in the formula: Mint, Chuanxiong, Baizhi, Qianghuo, Xixin, Xiangfu, Jingjie, Fangfeng, and Licorice.

Tea is often combined with other herbs or flavors. Black tea combines with warming and stimulating spices to make chai. Green tea combines with jasmine flowers to create jasmine tea. A favorite nourishing and relaxing combination of mine is green tea, goji, and chrysanthemum.

Get to know tea. Play with both topical and internal herbal preparations, both solo and combined. Plant Camellia spp. indoors or outdoors. Celebrate tea by yourself or shared with community. Experiment, learn, and connect. Enjoy.

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References

- Baldwin, Goldman, Keil, Patterson, Rosatti, Wilken, The Jepson Manual (California: University of California Press, 2012) 834- 860.

- Linda Prince, “Theaceae,” Flora of North America, accessed Sept 3, 2020, http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=10882

- Joel Penner, “Lu Cha,” American Dragon, accessed July 30, 2020, https://www.americandragon.com/Individualherbsupdate/LuCha.html

- Joel Penner, “Chuan Xiong Cha Tiao San,” American Dragon, accessed October 2, 2020, https://www.americandragon.com/Herb%20Formulas%20copy/ChuanXiongChaTiaoSan.html

- “Camellia sinensis,” Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia_sinensis

- “Theaceae,” Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theaceae#cite_note-delta-3

- “Tea processing,” Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing

- Maggie Moran, “How to Grow a Tea Plant,” WikiHow, accessed October 2, 2020, https://www.wikihow.com/Grow-a-Tea-Plant

- Sean Paajanen, “Grow and Harvest Tea at Home,” The Spruce Eats, accessed October 2, 2020, https://www.thespruceeats.com/growing-tea-at-home-766090#:~:text=For%20planting%2C%20Camellia%20sinensis%20likes,before%20you%20start%20harvesting%20leaves

- Irene, “5 Simple Skin Care Recipes with Green Tea,” Mountain Rose Herbs blog, accessed October 3, 2020, https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/skin-care-green-tea

- Kendle, “Homemade Hydrating Green Tea Face Serum,” Mountain Rose Herbs blog, accessed October 3, 2020, https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/diy-green-tea-skin-serum