It is important to understand the difference between tea (thé) and herbal tea (tisane).

What’s important to understand is that what makes tea is the transformation of the plant, not the plant itself.

Of course, we’re all familiar with the Camellia sinensis plant from China, which is processed in a variety of ways to produce white, green, Wulong, black, Pu-erh and other teas.

However, few people know that black tea has also been produced from fireweed in Russia for centuries.

Now our company produces them in Quebec. It’s the beginning of a new era of !

The process for making herbal tea :

The leaves of a plant are harvested and then dried at low temperatures to preserve their properties and essential oils. This process in no way alters the plant’s original aromas (e.g., dried mint from Quebec or Europe). Fireweed or Camellia sinensis leaves can be harvested and dried at low temperatures to make herbal teas… which don’t actually taste that good.

The process for making tea is as follows:

The leaves of a plant are harvested and processed using techniques involving several precise stages: picking, wilting, rolling, oxidation, high-temperature drying, cooking, roasting, etc.

During the black tea manufacturing process, the action of enzymes naturally present in the plant helps to develop new aromas (e.g. Darjeeling black tea from India). (E.g.: Darjeeling black tea from India.) We can therefore harvest fireweed, raspberry or C. sinensis leaves and subject them to the enzymatic process to make a tasty black tea.

Thus :

• Fireweed leaves harvested and dried at low temperatures = fireweed herbal tea (caffeine-free)
• Fireweed leaves that have been harvested, withered, rolled, oxidized, and oven-dried = fireweed black tea (caffeine-free)
• Camellia sinensis leaves harvested and dried at low temperatures = Camellia sinensis herbal tea (containing caffeine)
• Leaves of Camellia sinensis that have been harvested, withered, rolled, oxidized, and oven-dried = black tea made from Camellia sinensis (contains caffeine)

The presence of caffeine

It’s important to understand that caffeine (also known as theine) is a molecule found in plants. Only a few plants in the plant world contain it: coffee, Camellia sinensis, yerba maté, cocoa, guarana, etc.

By the same token, what makes coffee is the processing (fermented and roasted, in this case), not the plant. Coffee can be made from other roasted plants, but without caffeine: barley coffee, cereal coffee, chicory coffee, dandelion coffee, etc.

In a nutshell:

Tea is all about transformation.

What makes caffeine is the plant.

Voilà!