Differences Between Black, Green & Oolong Tea

When I first started learning about tea, I was blown away by the sheer amount that I didn’t know. I remember first learning about the differences between all of the different teas such as black, green, oolong and others. This may seem like common knowledge to those immersed in the tea world, but for many people this is something that they just never thought about.

First we have to get to the root of what all tea is, which is a plant. All tea is made from the exact same plant called Camellia Sinensis. The only “teas” that are not made from this plant are herbals. Technically all herbals are not teas at all, but called “tisanes”. Even though tisanes are not true tea, they have a great range of health benefits as well as flavors that can be used in so many ways that can compliment the tea experience.

All teas go through most of the same steps to get to the leaves that you purchase from the stores. However, the biggest difference comes from the oxidation process. What is oxidation though? It’s the process where the tea leaves are exposed to the air to dry and darken. It’s the same process as other plants like bananas or avocados when they start to brown. This is a similar process that is done after harvesting to bring a different flavor and boldness to the tea.

Here are the average different levels of oxidation for the 3 main tea categories:

Black Tea

~50 minutes of oxidation (aka full oxidation)

Oolong Tea

~1-49 minutes of oxidation

Green Tea

No oxidation

As you can see, oolong teas have a crazy range of oxidation. It really is any level of oxidation between fully oxidized and not oxidized at all. This makes some oolongs taste very similar to green teas and others more close to black teas. So if you’re looking for an oolong tea, make sure you look at the description to see if it’s about the flavor profile that you’re looking for.

Once the oxidation is done, it’s steamed to stay at the level of oxidation that the estate wants. With just a few steps after that of drying and removing of stems and any other impurities, you have the tea that you love!

Now I don’t want to be thrown to the wolves by not mentioning that there are more teas than just black, oolong and green. There are many others such as yellow, white, and even an aged tea such as pu-reh. I wanted to just address the main 3 categories here