Beneficial Effects of Green Tea—A Review – Part 2: Green Tea Processin

Carmen Cabrera, PhD, Reyes Artacho, PhD, Rafael Gime´nez, PhD
Departamento de Nutricio´ n y Bromatologı´a, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Granada, Granada, SPAIN

Green tea is mainly produced from Camellia sinensis var.sinensis. The Assan type Camellia sinensis var. assamica) has a too high content of polyphenols, which would make green tea taste excessively bitter [3].

The production of green tea is characterized by an initial heating process, which kills the enzyme polyphenol oxidase, which is responsible for the conversion of the flavanols in the leaf into the dark polyphenolic compounds that colour black tea. The other important process is rolling, in which leaves are cut and twisted. The final form of green tea depends on the particular variant being produced.

The  rolling stage is very similar to the operation with the same name in black tea production. Green tea production is restricted mainly to China and Japan [3,6]. Fig. 1 shows the principal differences between green and black tea processing.

 

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