The Elevation and Quality of Tea

One of the very important elements that crucially affects the quality of tea is the elevation. Many people are fascinated by old tea tree and they care a lot about the age of tea tree when they select tea. But less people care about the elevation. For example, not many people seems to care about the elevation when they mention about Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong or Pu-erh Tea. However, if you really understand the difference in quality between high elevation and low elevation, you may cherish the altitude a lot more than other factors.

Why is the high elevation produces good tea?

In every moment, we human inhale oxygen and release carbon dioxide. As for plants, there are two different ways. During day time, plants intake carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They carry out photosynthesis and produces energy and other constitutends. On the contrary, at night, plants intake oxygen and release carbon dioxide, just like us. At night, plants consume energy they produced in a day time and trying to grow. In other words, plant is a manufacturer in a day time and a consumer at night. At higher elevation, the temperature drops tremendously at night and the concentration of oxygen is low. Under the circumstances, plants are forced to slow down the metabolism and they are unable to consume the substance they produced in a day time. Consequently, plants contain more constituents which makes the taste of tea becomes thick and rich. When I source Phoenix Oolong or Yunnan tea, we care a lot about the altitude. The tea from higher elevation gives soft and creamy drinking sensation with multi-layer of thick flavour. However, once nitrogen fertilizer is used, the growing speed of tea trees is accelerated. As a result, the taste of tea becomes thin and tea significantly reduces the high-mountain characteristic.