Tea

Camellia sinensis, commonly known as tea plant, tea shrub, and tea tree, is a species of evergreen shrub in the flowering plant family Theaceae. The leaves harvested from C. sinesis are brewed into tea.

Originally native to the highlands of the Hengduan–Purvanchal region between southwestern China, northern Myanmar and northeastern India, the leaves, buds and stems of C. sinensis are harvested by humans to produce tea, leading to its artificial introduction and cultivation as valuable cash crops in many other parts of the world, with China, India and Kenya being the three largest tea-producing countries.

Tea leaves used to make white tea, yellow tea, green tea, oolong, dark tea (which includes pu'er tea) and black tea (aka red tea) are all made from two of the five varieties of C. sinensis that form the bulk of the tea crops now grown, C. sinensis var. sinensis and C. sinensis var. assamica, but are processed differently to attain varying levels of oxidation, with black tea being the most oxidized and white being the least. Kukicha (twig tea) is also made from C. sinensis, but uses only twigs and stems rather than leaves and buds.