Botham's have been serving fine teas for generations...
TEA
 Tea is grown all over the world where the climate is warm and humid with good rainfall. For the most part, tea is grown and manufactured in the same garden, with the exception of some Asian teas, which are grown on family farms and centrally processed. Each estate manager manufactures his teas differently to the next and it is this skill that enhances the individual qualities of the tes.

TEA TYPES
Black - Tea is plucked and laid on wire mesh in troughs for up to 18 hours with warm air blown gently through it. This allows the leaf to wither and brings its moisture content down to around 70%. Following this withering process, the tea is manufactured either by orthodox or CTC methods.

Orthodox - Withered leaf is passed into a large rolling machine that rolls the teas between two brass plates, mimicking the action of hand rolling (the ancient way that tea would have been made). This rolling slowly breaks and bruises the leaf veins, which allows gentle and steady oxidising that favours leaf style and flavour over strength.

CTC - (Cut, Tear, Crush) the withered leaves are loaded into the CTC machine which then cuts into the leaf with sharp cutters. The shape of these cutters encourages the leaf to curl into small "ball" like particles. Because the leaf veins are being cut, the oxidising process is quicker than that of orthodox tea. The result is that CTC type tea brews quicker and is stronger, making it perfect for teabags.

Whichever method is used, the leaf ill oxidise (ferment) during processing. Once the tea has oxidised sufficiently, it is halted by a process called firing - this is when the leaves are placed into large drying machines for anything from 20 minutes to 2 hours to reduce the moisture content to about 3%. The tea is then sifted and sorted according to size.

Green - The plucked leaves are laid in troughs, with warm air blown through to allow them to wither. The leaves are then rolled and immediately either steamed or pan fired in large "Wok" type pans to stop any oxidising from occurring. If the tea is steamed it will produce a very dark, green liquor, compared to a lighter, ,ore yellow liquor from the pan-fired tea.

Oolong - Where Black tea is oxidised for a long period of time and Green tea in not allowed to oxidise at all, Oolong tea is allowed to semi-oxidise. This means that instead of breaking or cutting the veins (as in orthodox and CTC manufacture), the leaves are simply tossed by hand to lightly bruise the leaf and allow a small degree of oxidisation. This is repeated many times and the tea is finally fired in large woks.

White - From the Narcissus variety of Camellia Sinensis, the tea buds are plucked by hand before they have been allowed to open and whilst they still have their white down hair. The leaves are carefully sorted prior to drying so that only the perfect and undamaged leaves are used. Once sorted, they are laid out in the sun to dry and wither naturally. This process obviously allows for no oxidisation whatsoever and produces a very light and delicate liquoring tea that has been favoured by Chinese Emperors for thousands of years.