Dallmayr tea

Quality made by experts

Tea has been a Dallmayr tradition for around 130 years. The individual provenance of black and green tea hails from a vast area ranging from the sunny southern slopes of the Himalayas to Japan and is carefully selected and blended in the Dallmayr tea factory. Around 120 varieties of various origin are available for selection – from ‘true tea’ to fruit and herbal infusions, as well as more exotic options such as matcha or turmeric tea.

Dallmayr Mitarbeiterinnen in der Teeabteilung im Delikatessenhaus München

Tea preparation

Valuable tips for preparing tea–
How to make the perfect pot of tea in just a few steps

Dallmayr loser Tee — Good to know: different teas
have different brewing times.
· Black tea: 3–5 minutes
· Green tea: 2–3 minutes
· Fruit, rooibos and herbal teas: 5–10 minutes

1.2.3.4.5.6.

1. Water

Always use fresh, cold tap water.

2. Warming the vessel

Rinse out the teapot before use with hot water to warm it.

3. Temperature

Pour boiling water over black tea, herbal tea and fruit tea. For green tea, allow the water to cool down to approx. 80°C, or the tea will taste bitter.

4. Unfolding

Loose leaf tea needs space to unfold, so do not ‘confine’ it in a tea infuser.

5. Keeping the tea warm

Teapot warmers may look attractive, but they burn away the aroma of the tea. A Thermos flask is perfect here.

6. Rinsing

Rinse the teapot with hot water after use.

Tea cultivation regions

Illustration Weltkarte mit Teeanbaugebieten — ArgentinaEthiopiaBangladeshChinaGeorgiaIndonesiaIndiaIranJapanKenyaMalawiMyanmarNepalSri LankaTaiwanTanzaniaThailandTurkeyVietnam

Tea has an unbelievably long history:

since the Chinese Emperor’s serendipitous discovery in 2737 BC, tea has become the most popular drink in the world today, second only to water. The first ships of the Dutch East India Company brought tea to Holland in around 1610.

Very soon thereafter, East Frisian sailors working on the Dutch ships brought tea home to East Frisia for the first time. By around 1720 the tea trade was thriving in East Frisia.

Tea plants

The most popular plants in the world! Like coffee, there are different types of tea, both of which come from the ‘original’ species, Camelia sinensis.

(Thea sinensis)

(Chinese tea)

Even without pruning, these plants remain shrub-like and grow to no more than three to five metres high. They are especially suitable for growing in temperate zones and can even tolerate frost. The Chinese tea tree has been cultivated for thousands of years, leading to a vast range of around 5,000 different varieties, some of which are cultivated in very small quantities. The first tea estate in India was established in the Darjeeling region in the 19th century using the Chinese tea plant.

Thea assamica

(Assam tea)

When not pruned, this plant grows into a tree with a noble stature of 15 to 20 metres. It needs heat as a truly tropical plant. It was discovered in the northern Indian jungle as a fully grown tree in 1823. Cultivation followed just a few years later. The plant has larger leaves and grows faster than Thea sinensis. The Assam tea tree needs a hot and humid climate.

Hybrids/clones

(crosses)

After the discovery of the Assam plant in the jungle of the Assam region, growers in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) began crossing the two tea tree varieties in order to get the best of both. These hybrids (crosses) are now cultivated almost everywhere. For yield reasons, the proportion of the fast-growing Assam plant is kept as high as possible in subsequent propagation. The two primary plant varieties have been continuously crossed in an effort to produce even finer, more aromatic and above all more resistant cultivars. The Assam hybrids that have come from these crosses have proven to be especially beneficial and are today the basis for almost all tea cultures in the world. These days the plants are propagated using ‘clones’.

Harvesting and processing

It is our mission to create uniquely indulgent moments with tea at their heart, and therefore to arouse a fascination with the world of tea. The journey from cultivation and harvesting to processing is a long one that we undertake with the utmost care and most stringent quality standard.

Harvesting
Processing
Steaming vs pan firing
Withering
Rolling
Fermentation/
oxidation
Drying
Sorting

Harvesting

‘Two leaves and a bud’ is the rule of harvesting tea. Only the young buds bring the coveted ingredients and pleasant taste to the tea.

In India, the first harvest of the year – known as the ‘first flush’ – starts after the winter break and runs from mid-March to the end of April. The 'second flush’ runs from mid-May to the end of June. The highlight of the tea season comes right at the start of harvesting in March: The ‘first flush by air’ is the very first plucking of the season, which is loaded directly onto planes directly after processing and sent out to the whole world, where tea connoisseurs eagerly await them.

It takes a lot of work to produce a cup of tea: 4 kg of tea leaves make 1 kg of black tea.

Processing

From one plant comes many different varieties. Processing alone determines whether the leaves become white, green or black tea. It all depends on the combination of individual steps and the order in which they are carried out.

1Steaming vs pan firing

For green tea to be green, the enzymes responsible for fermentation must be deactivated. In China, this process is traditionally carried out in a hot iron pan. In Japan, by contrast, green tea is steamed. It looks like cooked spinach in the end.

Illustration Dämpfen von Teeblättern und Illustration Rösten von Teeblättern in Eisenpfanne — SteamingPan firing

2Withering

To create black tea, the leaves have to be withered immediately after plucking. Withering makes the leaves limp and soft so they can be processed further.

Gepflückte Teeblätter ausgebreitet auf langen Welkgestellen

3Rolling

The leaves for black and green tea are then rolled. Rolling ruptures the cell walls of the leaves, releasing essential oils and producing a captivating aroma. Black tea leaves start to oxidise, whereas green tea leaves do not.

4Fermentation/oxidation

Black tea gets its colour and flavour from fermentation. The tea is officially ‘roasted’ in this highly controlled process. The fermentation master stops fermentation at exactly the right point.

Grüner, frisch gerollter Tee und dunklerer, fermentierter Tee

5Drying

Whether tea is white, green or black, all teas must be dried after processing. Hot air is used to dry the tea across multiple stages in special dryers until there is only 3–6% moisture remaining.

Illustration Wagentrockner mit mehreren Ebenen für Tee

6Sorting

The tea is then sorted by leaf grade using vibrating sieves with different hole sizes.
This is where we see the different grades of black tea. FOP and BOP grades are used for loose leaf teas, pyramids, tea pockets and tea champs. Tea producers, including us, use fannings in premium tea bags. Sorting has nothing to do with the quality of the team because all of the leaf grades come from the same plucking. It is only used to aid the subsequent use of the tea. As an aside, ‘dust’ is mainly used to produce cheap tea bags, iced tea and tea extract.

Tee wird in einer Maschine nach Blattgraden sortiert

Illustration Tee Blattgrade — Leaf tea> 5 mm to whole leaves: for the most exquisite **leaf teas**
FOP to SFTGFOP1
Broken tea3–5 mmBOP to GFBOP
Fannings1–3 mmfor our teabag blends
Dust1 mmfor cheap teabags or the production of instant and iced tea

Tea tasting

Tea tasting is a standard practice here at Dallmayr. Whether during the purchasing process, to check the quality of new deliveries or of varieties already in our possession, or to develop new and exciting blends, our tea experts go through many cups of tea every day.

Tee Experte Rudi Krapf verkostet diverse Tee Sorten

‘A good tea taster must train their senses for seven years.’

— Rudi Krapf, a tea expert for more than 40 years
In order to find the best leaves from amongst the premium plants, our expert tastes his way through the tea gardens of the world – sometimes up to 300 cups a day. Tea tasting follows a standardised procedure throughout the world – whether it’s in a plantation in Darjeeling or in the Dallmayr tea factory in Munich...

Lose Teeblätter werden mit einer Waage gewogen

Weigh out

According to an old English tradition, precisely 2.86 grams – the weight of an old English sixpence coin – are weighed out by hand for each sample.

Chinese tradition
It is said that Chinese tea masters were able to tell whether a cup of tea was made using water from near the river bank, from the middle of the river or from a well.

Aufgebrühter Tee wird in Probierschale gegossen

Infuse

Every tea sample is infused with 150 ml hot tap water in a standardised porcelain pot and covered with a lid. After precisely five minutes, the tea is poured into the sample cup.

Did you know?
Tea was discovered thousands of years earlier than coffee. One day, the wind blew a tea leaf into the Emperor of China’s hot water. This was the birth of tea as a drink.

Look

While waiting for the tea to cool down to approximately 45 degrees for sampling, the Dallmayr experts check the colour and texture of the dry and brewed tea leaves.

Two leaves and a bud...
Exquisite teas are always picked by hand, according to the rule of ‘two leaves and a bud’ – in other words, the two youngest leaves with the new leaf bud.

Tee Experte riecht an aufgebrühten Tee Blättern

Sniff

Tea only completely releases its aroma when it is brewed. Before the tea is tasted, the damp, swollen tea leaves known as the infusion are sniffed.

Tea aroma
The two youngest leaves initially have a neutral fragrance and are transformed into an aromatic tea right on the plantation through various production processes.

Tee Experte probiert frisch aufgebrühten Tee

Taste

The tea is tasted using a standardised tasting spoon. Each Dallmayr tea taster has their own. Here, the rule of thumb is ‘slurp, smack, spit’.

Slurping is not only allowed, but extremely important: the tea is slurped from the spoon with as much oxygen as possible. Then the tea is washed around the tongue and the palate.

The oxygen inside the mouth plays an important role here, as it enables all the flavours to be brought out fully: bitter, sweet and various aromas, such as citrus, fruit, flowers or spices, which make the individual tea what it is.

Tee Experten probieren frisch aufgebrühte Teesorten

Spit

Finally, the taster spits the tea out. As with coffee or wine tastings, spitting primarily has a practical purpose: the experts taste numerous samples, often several hundred cups a day. If they did not spit it out, they would consume too much caffeine.

Stimulation instead of agitation
In tea, the caffeine is bonded to the tannins and is only gradually released in the body. Tea therefore stimulates without agitating.

Good to know

Tea and its mysteries

One plant, three drinks

Black tea

Black tea is our most popular variety. The essential production steps for black tea are: plucking, withering (approx. 30% of moisture is removed from the tea leaves during this process), rolling (to rupture the cell structure and release the sap), oxidation/fermentation (like iron rusting in humid air), drying and sorting by leaf size. Tea does not get its red-brown colour until the sap in the cells is fermented (or more accurately, oxidised) by the air.

Green tea

Black tea only differs from green tea in the way it is processed. Green tea is not fermented and goes through different processes. The essential difference is that green tea leaves are heated before rolling in order to deactivate the enzymes – keeping the tea ‘green’. In Japan, this is done by steaming the leaves, whereas in China, the leaves are fired in large iron pans. The leaves are then rolled, dried and sorted.

White tea

Like black and green tea, white tea also comes from the plant Camellia sinensis. However, white tea is only plucked and dried, so that the overall leaf structure is preserved. The tea contains lots of young buds with fine, white hairs that give the dried tea its white appearance and therefore its name. This is also the most likely type of tea discovered almost 5,000 years ago by Emperor Cheng Nung when a few dried tea leaves serendipitously fell into a pot of hot water.

Storage

What tea likes

Store in tight, sealed containers, such as tea tins
Keep cool/dark/dry
Store away from strong odours
Keep fine green teas in the refrigerator

What tea does not like

Light
Heat
Strong odours
Moisture

Ingredients and effect

Long-lasting

Tea contains many beneficial ingredients: caffeine, tannins, essential oils, minerals, fluoride and flavonoids. We know the effect of caffeine well. Since caffeine in tea is bonded to the tannins, it does take effect as intensely or quickly as in coffee, but its effect is felt for longer. So if you drink a pot of ‘true’ tea in the evening, you may not sleep very well that night.

Graph Wirkung von Koffein in Kaffee und Tee mit der Zeit — Effect
CaffeineCoffeeTeaTime

Fruit and herbal teas

Illustration mit Teeglas und Wasser und diversen Teekräutern — FruitsBlossomsLeavesRoots

Fruit and herbal teas are not actually teas, but infusions. They generally consist of leaves, fruits, roots or blossoms. Their preparation does not differ from that of ‘true’ teas, so that even fruit and herbal infusions are called ‘tea’.

Fun facts

10 billion cups of tea are consumed every day – that’s about 115,000 cups per second.
After water, tea is the world’s most popular drink!
Black tea has 30,000 different ingredients (coffee has just 1,600).
Dallmayr boasts over 120 tea varieties in our range.