Tea is a hot drink made from pouring boiling water over dried leaves. Despite hundreds of products labelled tea, to be the ‘real thing’, those leaves must come from the Camelia Sinensis, the tea plant, which looks not unlike a privet hedge. Just as with fine wine, many factors can affect the finished tea. The soil, the altitude and climate have an effect, as does the ways the leaves are harvested, fermented, roasted and blended.

Hence, the myriad of teas found on sale.

There are three common varieties of tea available, white, green and black, and all start with the green leaves which are then processed differently. Black teas are created from heavily fermented leaves and the most popular tea for everyday drinking. White teas are the tips of the unopened leaves which are dried with no fermentation, resulting in a light, delicate and expensive tea. Green tea lies somewhere between the two.

All three have roughly the same levels of caffeine, but the unfermented white tea has higher levels of antioxidants and nutrients.