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A comment on Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fatal condition. Parent comment

Re:Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fata... by gwern on Monday February 06, 2017 @03:50PM (#13583752)
They may technically be the same species, but the cultivars/breeds can be very different. (Think about, say, dogs.) If you've spent much time drinking various kinds of tea, you know they can taste very different, and it's not just due to the processing: I've tried greens from Korea and India, black teas from China, oolongs from India and Thailand etc and different cultivars processed the same way do not taste the same way - they do not taste like their counterparts from Japan, India, and China respectively, even when they are advertising themselves as clones and attempting to taste as much alike as possible. Since flavor is due to differing levels of organic chemicals, if there are tastable differences, why not differences in levels of other chemicals too...
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Re:Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fata... by baldfat on Monday February 06, 2017 @05:36PM (#13584951)
There are many cultivars but tea is even more sensitive in taste then say wine and grapes. Tea is very susceptible to climate and even harvest times. Darjeeling tea is my favorite but there are three different flushes. I prefer the less expensive second flush, but each one is taken from the same tea leaves and they all taste different. Darjeeling is of the same cultiver as all Chinese teas. Since Darjeeling is grown at such a high altitude and climate you can't get the same flavor in Chine though if someone figured that out they would be a multi-millionaire. Think the farmed caviar that is now hitting the market.

PS I love tea and the crazy things that happens with it, even in the same cultivars.

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Re:Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fata... by gwern on Monday February 06, 2017 @11:03PM (#13586908)
You're only further emphasizing why one would have to be crazy to not test tea varieties separately...
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Re:Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fata... by baldfat on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @08:04AM (#13597874)
But I was talking about the same tea plant and the same variety.
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Re:Green tea compound may halt molecular cause of often-fata... by gwern on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @05:12PM (#13602681)
Indeed. If you can get such differences in taste from the same variety and same exact tea plant, then the differences between different plants of different varieties in different countries harvested at different times to be processed different ways will be even greater, will they not? Making it even more foolish to not try to test different kinds of teas, and your criticism deeply misguided.
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