Tea Quality

Enjoy hand-picked teas of the highest quality

For tea lovers, enjoyment means above all confidence and security in high-quality tea products. The confidence that only the best raw materials are used for the exquisite teas and the certainty that you are enjoying an uncontaminated hot drink that meets the highest standards of tea quality. As a tea retailer, you can buy top-quality tea products wholesale from Wollenhaupt Tee. What criteria characterise high-quality teas? We provide you with the most important information on tea quality.

Whether herbal tea, fruit tea, green tea or black tea - the growing regions for the most popular teas are now not only located in China, Japan, India and Sri Lanka, but are spread all over the world. The journey from the growing region to the tea lover's cup is a long one. This is reason enough for us to take a particularly close look at all times and to stand up for the highest quality standards at all stages of the production process as a matter of course. Wollenhaupt guarantees the highest tea quality for all products in its range and seamless quality management as part of our product safety management system. We also fulfil the globally binding FSSC 22000 certification requirements. We monitor tea production from cultivation to transport to production in our company. This ensures that you, as a tea retailer, only offer your customers products that meet the highest tea quality standards and provide tea lovers with unique moments of pleasure. 

Ensure quality through regular visits to suppliers

Tea is now grown all over the world. The Camellia sinensis tea plant has expanded its triumphal march from China and Japan to the whole world. The demand for tea products is enormous. Taken together, the different types of tea are the most consumed beverage worldwide after water. The widespread distribution of tea-growing regions around the globe - many of which are now also in Africa and South America - inevitably means that the quality of tea varies. 

This makes it all the more important to select only the best of the best from our suppliers. We select our suppliers through audit visits to the countries of origin. Local production areas, growing conditions and harvesting conditions determine whether a product meets our high standards. In each case, we gain our own personal impression of the suppliers and the people on site. Even long-standing suppliers are visited and inspected by Wollenhaupt on a regular basis to ensure the best tea quality at all times. 

Overview: the most important criteria for tea quality

• Type of plant and growing area
• Climatic conditions in the growing area
• harvest period
• Leaf size and leaf components
• Aromatic properties of the tea
• Sensory characteristics of the raw materials
• Colouring of the tea
• Composition of the ingredients

How high tea quality is characterised

Tea can vary greatly in quality, that is in the nature of things. In the past, tea connoisseurs used to determine tea quality by smelling the tea and carrying out sensory tests. Even today, the quality of the respective products is still differentiated on the basis of the type of tea plant, the growing area, the climatic conditions in the growing region, the harvest period, the leaf size and leaf components, the aromatic properties, the sensory properties of the raw materials, the colour of the tea and the composition of the ingredients. This allows the best teas to be identified.

There are also internationally recognised classifications for tea grades and leaf grades, which are mainly used for black tea. A basic distinction is made between leaf tea, broken tea and fannings. Leaf tea refers to the long, large tea leaves, which are also known as orange pekoe. Broken, on the other hand, are smaller leaves that have been mechanically broken and have a very aromatic flavour. Fannings, on the other hand, are tiny tea leaves. This results in the leaf varieties. Leaf tea, brokens and fannings are categorised into different quality grades and given a code consisting of letters and sometimes numbers. Basically, the more letters a grade has, the higher the quality. 

For example, OP stands for Orange Pekoe and is the lowest tea quality. In contrast, FTGFOP stands for Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. The latter is the highest tea quality and translates as "tea with a high proportion of leaf tips, excellent colouring, very pleasant smell and aroma". The particularly high quality leaves often come from the best plantations and are harvested by hand.   

Biotees: Garanten für höchste Teequalität? 

Viele Verbraucher setzen höchste Teequalität mit Biotee aus kontrolliert biologischem Anbau gleich. Doch ganz so einfach ist die Sachlage nicht: Die besten Tees sind oftmals keine Bioprodukte. Sie werden auch heute noch im konventionellen Teeanbau gewonnen. Dennoch sind Biotees tendenziell besonders hochwertige Erzeugnisse, die Verbrauchern bei der Auswahl ihres Heißgetränks Sicherheit und Vertrauen in das jeweilige Produkt geben. „Bio“, „aus kontrolliert biologischem Anbau“ und „Öko“ sind Begriffe, die von der Europäischen Union besonders geschützt werden. Sie dürfen nur von landwirtschaftlichen Erzeugnissen verwendet werden, die höchste Herstellungsanforderungen erfüllen. 

How tea lovers recognise the quality of a tea

Of course, tea quality should not only be recognised by experts. As a tea retailer, you can convey the quality of exquisite teas to your customers. High-quality tea is characterised above all by its freshness, naturalness without colouring agents and the homogeneity of the product, which should consist of leaves of the same size and colour wherever possible. Of course, the flavour of the tea is also important. The flavour of each type of tea should meet the expectations of the tea in question. While white tea is generally rather mild, green tea can also be tart and slightly bitter and black tea can vary in flavour from floral to spicy.  

Conclusion: tea quality you can taste

Tea lovers should be able to enjoy their cups of tea safely and relaxed. This requires absolute confidence in the quality of the tea. Whether you are drinking black tea, green tea, white tea, yellow tea, oolong tea or pu-erh tea, the quality of the tea is directly linked to the enjoyment of the tea. Of course, this applies equally to all tea-like infusions such as herbal teas, fruit teas and rooibos tea, which must also fulfil the highest external and internal quality standards and are often also available in organic quality. Quality assurance also takes place through dialogue within our industry. Wollenhaupt Tee is therefore a member of the German Tea & Herbal Infusions Association, as well as belonging to international organisations such as the European association THIE and the US Tea Association.

In a tea market that is becoming increasingly complex and regionally diversified, as a tea retailer you need a strong partner whose high standards of tea quality and comprehensive market overview you can count on at all times. From the growing regions of the world to the consumer's cup, Wollenhaupt Tee stands for the highest quality management throughout the entire process from cultivation, harvesting and processing to incoming goods, production preparation, production itself and outgoing goods to the tea retailers. You and your customers can taste this high tea quality in every single cup.